Totally amazing. It’s hard for me to imagine ever having the skill required to appear to fly that badly. It’s awesome. He’s got incredible control.
The pilot is Kyle Franklin from Franklin’s Flying Circus & Airshow. He is married to the beautiful Amanda Younkin, who manages Franklin’s Flying Circus and Younkin Airshows. Kyle and Bobby Younkin are the pilots – although Amanda can fly as well. When she was featured in the 2010 Bombshell calendar, she was the only babe to fly the planes as well as pose in front of them.
(Hey, another great gift idea! You can buy the calendar online at My Bombshells)
A high resolution copy of film can be downloaded from their website along with a dozen other clips of the circus in action at Franklin’s Flying Circus Video Page. This particular clip is the one marked as “Comedy Act Video Download” and worth watching full-screen on the biggest monitor you can find.
The website also includes details of Jimmy Franklin and Bobby Younkin, who tragically crashed at the Saskatchewan Centennial Air Show in 2005. Their air show team, Masters of Disaster was one of the most sought after in the industry at the time of the accident.
I enjoyed reading the short essays but was especially entranced by the descriptions of Kyle Franklin growing up with airshows as a standard backdrop of his childhood:
Kyle grew up living in a hangar-house in Ruidoso, NM. The hangar soon became his favorite playground as well as a place where he and his father shared quality time servicing Waco’s, Super Cubs, and the Aerostar. Kyle’s first airplane ride was four weeks after his birth. Father Jimmy taught him how to fly when he was eight years old and later taught him aerobatics. As a toddler, Kyle seized every opportunity to wing-walk in Dad’s Waco Mystery Ship as it taxied on about on the ground at air shows. Kyle took his first airborne wing-walk at age 14, and just three years later he was wing-walking professionally at age 17.
***UPDATE***At the time of writing this I have just received a youtube honor…something that’s fairly close to impossible unless it was shown on TV, someone gets hurt, or it’s a music video. This week, thanks to everyone viewing the new Airventure video, it ranked #83 of the top 100 viewed videos for youtube. That mean, out of every video viewed on youtube, the new Airventure video is #83. Thanks again for everyone who watched!
It’s been five days since I’ve uploaded the Airventure 2009 review video, and the view count…ratings…and comments are off the charts. It has exceeded expectations twenty fold! At the time of writing it has 21,633 views. THAT IS INSANE! I was not expecting anything more than maybe 1,200 views…maybe. To quote my father, “It just keeps feeding itself.”
As of today, the video is up to 658,636 views and has a 5-star rating. It really does deserve it, Slick has put a huge amount of effort into editing this video and it is honestly one of best I’ve seen come out of Airventure this year – including professional clips.
You can also read about his adventures at the airshow in a day-by-day review he posted to the EAA Airventure 2009 Post Review – ARC Air Discussion Forums. He took 1,400 photographs in addition to the video footage and included some of the best ones in his review.
The next Airventure will be July 26 – August 1 in 2010 and after seeing Slick Aviation’s video and photographs, I’m tempted to try to plan a trip to Oshkosh next summer.
‘It was like a scene from the Hitchcock movie The Birds. One second all was clear, and the next thing you saw were these birds swarming over the plane,’ said an onlooker.
It is thought more than 200 starlings were sucked into the right engine as the Boeing jet approached 200mph.
Others dented the fuselage but thankfully did not pierce it. Their splattered remains could be seen on the plane later.
Dyson realized something was wrong driving back to his shop when he saw the Bonanza scream past him along the runway, taking off with the cockpit door still swinging open. He called Pearah, realized he’d been had and called the police.
Meanwhile, Calhoun flew the plane about two miles east, according to Dyson, then reversed course west for another three miles before crashing into a strand of trees. Uninjured, Calhoun could’ve simply escaped like he’d done for years, except his truck was still at the airport.
Take a close look at the little yellow plane at 1:30 into the video for a gentle little prop strike right at the start of his takeoff roll. I’m amused / horrified that the pilot chose to continue the takeoff despite kissing the runway, but maybe I’m getting cowardly in my old age.
This post is devoted for all those who are real fans of aviation, for those who find the point of life in it, for all those who are not afraid of the depth of the sky. The dream to fly above the clouds in the altitudes where the air is thin is not for everyone, only those who are strong in their spirit are able to perform it and they dare to do it.
Air Force One is a prominent symbol of the United States in general and the office of the presidency in particular. Whenever the president travels overseas or across the country, he takes his high-tech deluxe jumbo jet with him. On September 11th, the president’s plane showed that it was much more than an executive jet — it became a mobile bunker when all ground positions seemed vulnerable to attack.
Among other full-sized machines are the Delagrange and the Bleriot biplanes — the latter a 3-seater — the Bleriot, R.E.P., and Antoinette monoplanes, Kapferer’s double monoplane, and the Breguet aeroplane-helicopter. The Wright aeroplane is represented by a fullsized model, but the others above-mentioned are actual machines, and form a collection which is, it will be seen, quite as representative as could be expected under the circumstances, and remarkably interesting to boot.
This week I’ll shut up about myself for once and share a collection of links that have shown up in my inbox.
Vincent (Plastic Pilot) and Jason (MzeroA) have successfully launched their new website: http://www.flyingacrossamerica.com. They are starting in Florida and aiming to make their way west to my home-state and visit Catalina Island – I used to go to Catalina on the ferry for sports matches when I was in highschool. I didn’t even know they had an airfield! I’m very much looking forward to reading the GA adventures that Vincent and Jason enjoy on their travels. You can follow the journey on their website: Flying Across America
We found our first stop: We’ve been invited by the guys at DestinJet, the premier FBO at Destin, on the Florida panhandle. With their brand new 6,000 sq ft executive terminal and state of the art facilities for passengers and crew, Destin Jet combines the Glory Days of aviation with every latest technology and service. They also accepted to refuel our Cessna 150 for free which is a great help to reduce our costs.
Sure, it looks like being carried off by a multicoloured raspberry, but would you care about such style points if you were floating coolly on a cloud – and with so little keeping you up there? Prepare for lift-off as we take an aerial tour through this extraordinary and breathtaking form of ballooning.
Artful Flying will bust your chops if you’re simply an airplane driver because it talks to readers about the philosophy of flying the way the old guys – and girls – used to do it. No, the physics of flying hasn’t really changed, but the art of flying has, at least in the sense that flying as an art seems to have a lot of its luster over the past 20 years..
For the first time in the history of Schiphol, a pilot had his entire plane evacuated after a dozen passengers behaved badly. The aircraft then left empty, and the passengers were sent home.
And last but not least, two videos from last month which hit the top of my list of “So glad I was not piloting that one”. Note neither of these accidents resulted in serious injury:
To be honest, it’s the commentary that really gets me. “That kinda blows” ?! Yeah, kinda…
The best thing about going away is the amount of interesting and intriguing articles waiting for me to read once I’m safely back home. This week, join me in catching up on some of the most intriguing aviation pieces to have landed in my in-box.
First of all,a hat tip to Plastic Pilot who linked to this incredible video of a runway incursion (almost two!) at Providence with a lost jet and a controller who can’t see that it has ended up on the active runway :
Indonesian pilot Marwoto Komar has been sentenced to two years in jail after being found guilty of criminal negligence for attempting to land a Boeing 737 in the wrong configurations and at almost twice the normal speed. The jet overran the end of the runway into a rice field. Twenty-two people were killed and fifty were seriously injured in the crash and ensuing fire.
My favourite little detail was that Adam reportedly landed with thirty minutes of fuel remaining. Maybe it was a coincidence, but I like to think that his flight instructor drilled air law into him so thoroughly that even while suicidally defying an international boundary and armed jets, he couldn’t disobey the mandate to land with half an hour of gas in his tanks.
In other spots, the song isn’t strictly speaking, accurate.
He was driving that bus that lost its wings and he made it fly
through the clouds up above he saw an eagle and a dove,
And brought peace.
Not to be a stickler, but the Airbus A320 never lost its wings. It lost both engines after a bird strike which was with neither an eagle, nor a dove, but with a flock of Canada Geese – a species that would have rhymed with “peace,” by the way. But hey, that’s poetic license for you.
The pilot in this photo is not from Angola Airlines, the plane is not a 737 and the landing is at the intended destination. How do I know? I took the photograph of Cliff landing the Saratoga at Lisbon. Still, now I can say that I live with a famous pilot who was featured on Wired: Whoops! 737 Lands At Wrong Airport | Autopia
The Boeing 737 was to land at Lusaka International Airport in Zambia but instead touched down 10 miles away at an airfield used by the country’s air force. The pilot realized he’d screwed up just before landing – the fighter jets had to be the first clue – but worried that lifting off again would panic his oblivious passengers. He proceeded with the landing and the airline loaded everyone onto a bus for the ride to Lusaka International.
And finally, thanks to the many people who sent me this utterly amazing emergency landing on Havendale Boulevard after an engine failure. The pilot’s flight instructor commented: “Watching that video, he was just awesome,” Amundsen said. “I just hope, you know, if I ever have a situation like that I can be as cool as Kyle was.” Don’t we all:
Engine Failure After Take-Off, commonly referred to as EFATO, is one of the most frightening events that can happen to a pilot. A recent incident hit International headlines when US Airways flight 1549 landed in the Hudson after a sudden loss of engine power. Every pilot has been trained to deal with EFATO but the reality of the situation has little in common with the practice runs when you have a competent instructor at your side with his hand on the throttle.
I don’t actually want to have to experience that particular reality but I do want to be as prepared as I possibly can should I have to deal with an engine problem close to the ground. One way of doing this is to read the details of real failures and how the pilots dealt with getting their planes onto the ground.
Manny Peralta, a commercial pilot in Australia, wrote about his experience for AirCentre Australia with useful detail and a summary of lessons learnt. I found it particularly interesting to read about how he ended up fighting his own instincts. Low Level Engine Failure After Takeoff:
For me, the most frightening thought just after an EFATO, is the overpowering urge to turn back despite the high risk of a stall and spin. It seems that fear and self-preservation, can overcome logical thinking and training. I only just managed to fight off the urge to turn back, by shouting to myself repeatedly over the intercom: “don’t turn back! For a split second, I also remembered a friend, who died when he apparently tried to turn back after an EFATO, from the same runway that I took off from that day. Being a young family man, a fiery death for me was definitely not an option!
The noise reverberates through every inch of my body; not a bang as such, but a metallic noise that I can most liken to a flak burst from a world war two movie: the chilling sound of an engine that has just died. Time seems to stop and yet accelerate tremendously all at once. The heavy whine as the engine drops from full power to nothing, the propeller windmilling uselessly in the airflow… No, no, bloody hell no! This cannot be happening! I glance in disbelief at the throttle and mixture levers, which I know that I am both holding fully forward anyway. Sheer terror grips me; my God we’re only at 200ft and we’re going to crash! I feel panic overwhelming me, then: Get a f*cking grip man!!!
This blog post about an EFATO in South Africa is not from the pilot’s perspective but nevertheless it is full of detail of the successful landing of a twin missing an engine. Soaring: EFATO:
He then spoke to Nationwide who said to him we have an emergency. We have lost hydraulics and partial disintegration of our right engine. The traffic controller said it is not part disintegration. The whole engine is lying on the runway.
This article for dealing with an engine failure is aimed at twins but as a single engine pilot I still found it full of interesting details and important advice. Pelican’s Perch #4:Engine Failure!:
Many GA pilots are confused over just how to handle an engine failure. What is most important? What to do first? What should the step-by-step procedure be? Every book written that I’ve seen is different, every CFI has her own variation, and when the unfortunate Applicant goes up for the Multi-Engine check ride, the Inspector/Examiner is very likely to say “No, no, no, that’s all wrong, here’s what I want to see,” and the poor Applicant learns yet another way to do it during the check ride. There are variations between instructors and check pilots within the same organizations, and very large differences between different companies, even when operating the same type of equipment.
Even highly-experienced pilots will get into heated arguments over this one. My two favorite ways to start a barfight are to ask “What makes lift?” and “What are the best memory items for an engine failure?” Then I sit back, listen quietly, and leave when it gets bloody. Of course, pilots no longer hang out in bars, so this is much less fun these days.
The horizon seems higher. The ground is nearer — dramatically so. In a turn, the ground is a powerfully close blur of color that is a stunningly integral part of your peripheral vision: It’s right there, bigger than life and, by gawd, it’s going by fast. That’s something one doesn’t experience in normal flight, even when maneuvering steeply at altitude. Up there, the ground is a more remote, abstract concept and it seems to be moving slowly. Down low, with the ground moving fast, and with the groundspeed increasing while the airplane holds a constant speed near the stall and turns from upwind to downwind, even a pilot with low-altitude experience feels the very powerful sensation of the groundspeed increase and tends to unconsciously pull back on the yoke to keep the speed under control (and, sadly, despite all training, to try to keep from going down). What makes it even worse is that, when the nose must be pushed down hard to accelerate to get speed for the flare, all the pilot sees is a windshield full of ground. It takes a lot of training to accept that visual picture long enough to get enough speed to avoid a stall. When experienced for the first time under the massive stress of an engine failure, it is no surprise that the end is almost preordained even for high-time pilots: a stall, with the future existence of the pilot and passengers telescoped to mere seconds.
This Airbum article includes sensible points about making the decision whether to abort a take-off to avoid that low-level engine failure altogether. Aborts, Go-Arounds And Other Common Sense:
Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules here because every situation is going to be different. However, a couple of concepts do apply. For instance, it’s better to run off the end of the runway with brakes locked and the tires smoking at 20 mph or slide off the end with a curled prop and the gear up than it is to stagger off the end at 100 feet and have the engine quite completely. Yeah, it’s expensive to land and run off the end of the runway but it is almost never fatal. Come down from even 100 feet and chances are, at the very least, you’ll be injured. If you abort and run off the end there will always be the nagging question, “would it have kept running?” If it quits at 100 feet, the question may be “will I ever walk again and did my passengers survive?”
And if that fails, then I’ll be glad if I can remember the points in their article about controlling an unplanned collision with the ground. Crash Survivability:
Many injuries are the result of getting the airplane too slow while still too far off the ground. The airplane didn’t stall, but the nose was brought up while the airplane was too high and the vertical rate of descent had plenty of time to skyrocket. There is a lot of structure in an airplane to absorb forward impact, but very little that works in the vertical direction.
Rule one in crashing: Fight the urge to pull. Maintain best glide speed until flaring just before impact. Try to make the landing as nearly normal as possible.
And finally, a short clip showing a Tigermoth landing in a field directly after take-off and running into a common field hazard:
Shortly after takeoff, when at approximately 200 ft above ground level, the engine speed dropped to idle. The pilot lowered the nose of the aircraft to maintain flying speed and turned right to land in a suitable field. The aircraft cleared a sturdy barbed wire fence but, as the aircraft touched down, a cow ran under and struck the left wing. The cow was apparently uninjured. Investigation of the aircraft by a local engineer found corrosion debris in the carburettor
Sometimes I can lose the entire day just reading websites and following links – but I can justify it by passing on the results. I’ve collected the best of what I’ve found to save you time! I’m such a martyr.
Flight attendants initially ignored passengers’ complaints and threatened to expel them from the Boeing 767 jet unless they stopped “making trouble”. As the rebellion spread, Aeroflot representatives boarded the aircraft to try to calm down the 300 passengers.
One sought to reassure them by announcing that it was “not such a big deal” if the pilot was drunk because the aircraft practically flew itself.
Jason shot these images with a camera attached to gyro-stabilized mounts from a Eurocopter AS355, hired out at around £1150 (GBP) per hour, using Nikon gear and either a 14-24mm or a 70-200mm lens. Even with that, the low light and heavy vibrations can make things difficult, Jason says “I often shoot tethered to my MacBook Pro to check the sharpness of the images whilst I shoot.”
Plastic Pilot is always on the lookout for good content to share with us. This week, he asked instructors for flying advice and published their answers. 5 Instructors give their top tips | Plastic Pilot:
So my best advice to pilots is to continually study, become a lifetime student of aviation! Don’t let complacency creep into your flying skills. Just like a physician has to stay up on the latest medical journals, techniques and practices, so must a good pilot continuously review airplane flight manuals, aviation regulations and trade publications (and blogs!) to keep current and sharp in this continuously changing environment of aviation.
It’s odd to see this report come out before the investigations are finished, but Boeing must have seen something that it really thinks needs to be fixed. The chance that this could cause another accident is slim, especially now that they’ve recommended some operational changes (like, fly lower where it’s warmer if necessary) that will help avoid the problem.
According to the suit, filed yesterday in Federal court, Virgin claims Adrants Publishing posted an ad on its website, Adrants.com, showing a photo of the jet planted in the Hudson River, with the caption, “The Hudson Crash: Just One More Reason to Fly Virgin.”
This Flight Global article is fascinating. NASA puts forward concepts and possibilities for the next century, including dismissing competition to reduce pollution (only one flight per route). I’m not sure I like the sound of their view for the future of private pilots.Flight 100 – the next 100 years:
Flying cars transporting people along dedicated “highways in the sky” at low cost on high-volume routes similar to the railway networks operated today, could be the answer to growing road congestion. The new generation of very light and personal jets will become an increasingly viable alternative to the strict regime of commercial flying, at a fraction of the cost of today’s business jets. This could fuel the growth of air taxi operations, which would become an integral part of the transport system and open remote and formerly inaccessible areas to businesses and individuals.
This Gizmodo article is a few months old so maybe everyone but me has already seen these bizarre uses of jet power but it did make me laugh. I have to admit the Darwin Awards come to mind.Gadgets: 10 Gadgets That Have No Business Using a Jet Engine:
Jet-Powered Toilet: Powered by a Boeing Jet engine, this outhouse can reach speeds in excess of 70 mph—giving it the distinction of being the “fastest toilet in the world.” The way I see it, that puts inventor Paul Stender on the same level as Chuck Yeager.
Everyone’s heard about the A320 that successfully landed in the Hudson and almost everyone seems to have an opinion. Finding the insightful points of view can take a little bit more time. Here’s my collection of the most interesting pieces on the Web that deal with the flight and its aftermath.
The Con Ed tape, which company spokesman Chris Olert said was recorded by a security camera at a steam plant on Manhattan’s west side, begins with the plane hitting the river and skidding to a halt in a spray of water and steam at 3:25 p.m.
Within a minute, an emergency slide folds from the plane’s right side, and the first passengers and crew members appear on the wings where dozens gathered to await rescue. One or two people are visible in the water, which authorities said was a dangerous 41 degrees at the time.
On behalf of all of us at US Airways, we hope that you have returned home and are resting and recovering following the evacuation of Flight 1549 on January 15, 2009. We are extremely grateful that our crew used their combined experience and training to safely land and evacuate all of the passengers onboard this flight. We also thank you, as many of you also played a role in ensuring a quick and safe exit.
It is interesting to see that the co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, was the flying pilot on this leg, but Captain Sullenberger decided to take over after the bird strike. Taking this decision and its acceptation by the co-pilot reveals excellent CRM. Swapping the flying pilot and non-flying pilot roles under such circumstances requires in-depth training and conviction that the CRM principles are good.
And then, having interviewed everyone available and panned around everyone’s cellphone photographs, for lack of anything else to say about it, the networks and headline writers started calling it ‘a miracle,’ and making me yell at the TV. Don’t get me wrong: this landing wasn’t a routine occurrence. It’s a stunning, inspiring event. It’s good that no one died. It’s also good that no one died on the hundreds of flights US Airways conducted that day without incident. But I think it’s somewhat insulting to attribute any of that safe flying to divine intervention.
The crew sees the geese, then feels the impact forces. Flight deck alarms are going off, one after the other. You can feel the aircraft decelerating. Get the nose down, fast! Maintain airspeed!What is happening here? A sick feeling washes over you from head to toe.
Owls are night rated and equipped (and oh so silent) In fact night aerobatic. One passed me walking dogs half an hour ago at head height pulled up and virtually stall turned onto a branch. Very skilful!
Radar studies (Griffin 1972) suggest that some birds can maintain straight and level flight under completely overcast conditions, but birds flying within clouds may produce erratic tracks, suggesting disorientation in the absence of visual cues.
I was going to write a long post about the different types of Air Traffic Service Units in the UK but I got distracted by the Internet. Somehow I’ve ended up spending hours reading about military planes from the past – important research if you want to discuss the difference between A/G Radio and ATC services, to be sure!
First I watched this great clip on YouTube. The 526th Fighter Interceptor Squadron made this video in Germany in the 1950s:
Then I found myself on the Royal Air Force site, looking at an astounding collection of photographs in the RAF Timeline starting from the 1st of April 1918 when the Royal Air Force and Women’s Royal Air Force were formed. How can I resist bits of trivia like this:
6 Sep 1939 – South Africa declares war on Germany. Also on this day is the Battle of Barking Creek, when a error in identification in the Chain Home Radar system led to RAF aircraft engaging each other over the Thames Estuary. Blenheims, Hurricanes and Spitfires, not physically unlike the German Ju 88 and Bf 109, reported seeing enemy aircraft and several claims were made.
And photographs like this:
I might have managed to get something done but a so-called “friend” chose that moment to send me a link to a recent Popular Mechanics special: The 6 Most Lethal Aircraft in History
The article includes photographs and descriptions of amazing fighter planes: Fokker Eindecker, A6M Zero, B-29 Superfortress, AC-130 Spectre, A-10 Thunderbolt, and the AH-64 Apache. And another half an hour was gone.
In an attempt to get back on track, I scanned through the Professional Pilots Rumour Network and found a thread in their private flying forum entitled Don’t call mayday over the radio…! with some responses that had me laughing out loud:
Actually I have long thought that the mayday call would be much more pithy as:
“F**K, F**K, F**K”!! Summarises the situation when the donk has quit at 100 feet quite nicely I think.
The Pan call could similarly be replaced by:
“Bugg*r, Bugg*r, Bugg*r”, as it carries a degree of irritation without quite as much immediate concern as the former.
On my first night circuit in a Wessex 5 helicopter some 30 years ago, we suffered a hydraulic failure, a “land asap, running landing” emergency.
I called “(Callsign) Wessex, PAN PAN PAN, hydraulic failure downwind, request priority running landing on the runway” (rather than a hover landing on the normal helicopter T night landing spots inside the runway) .
ATC said: “Stand by – I have a simulated engine failure joining shortly”.
My instructor said on the radio: “He didn’t say “Practice PAN…..it’s a real one”.
ATC: Oh, er…Ooops sorry, clear land on the runway.
And this informative post from a marine point of view:
I was taught by the RNLI that:-
Mayday (3times) should be used to declare an emergency which endangers the vessel and/or its passengers/crew.
Pan Pan (3 times) should be used to indicate an urgent transmission, taking precedence over everything except Mayday calls to report a threat to life or major problem short of a threat to the entire hull. (Note it is NOT a Pan call – it is a Pan-Pan call)
ie,One of 2 engines out in flight is a threat to the hull therefore a Mayday (even if you can continue on one engine since loss of the remaining engine could be a bad thing! just ask Ryanair) a heart attack passenger is regretable but no threat to the hull therefore a Pan Pan call if you want to off load them at the nearest airport.
Of passing interest – until about the mid 80s a man overboard (marine style) was just a Pan Pan and not a Mayday since there was no threat to the hull!!
The next thing I knew, it was dinner time and I had forgotten to put the roast in the oven! Luckily, I live with an understanding man who is happy to take me out for a quick Chinese meal … I hope!
For those of you who may not be familiar with a Head Up Display used in the F-16, the pilot essentially views the information while still being able to look out the cockpit. The airspeed is the tape along the left side in hundreds of knots, while the altitude unwinds on the right side tape.
Here’s a video displaying all commercial air traffic in the world during a 24-hour period. Seriously, I’m moving to New York City tomorrow and seeing the flight density in this computer simulation scares me a bit. Thankfully, it’s a big planet with plenty of space to fly. But then, pilot friends tell me that sometimes they get close enough to wave at each other, so maybe it’s not as big as to accommodate the 7.4 billion passengers that will travel by air in 2020.
I’ve never understood the dogmatic attitudes you’ll find among some pilots on this issue, although I’ve definitely seen those vociferous arguments out in the real world.
You can’t say it’s JUST power which determines altitude, because let’s face it, some aircraft don’t even have engines. And those aircraft happen to fly higher than aircraft which do have engines.
Good Captain / Bad Captain Revisited
Sam from Blogging at FL250 wrote Good Captain Bad Captain from the right seat. A few years later, he considers his point of view now that he’s in the left seat:
Having been in the left seat for about 300 hours, I can say that it’s a quite different experience than I thought it’d be when I was an FO.
Talking about big planes is very much like talking about who should get the credit for man’s first flight – it all depends on who you talk to. As the brilliant James Burke has pointed out, inventors rarely create something from nothing – their successes are often the result of combining the partial successes, or learning from the downright failures, of other inventors. In some cases, it’s just pure dumb luck.
For those of us dreaming of flying the London Airports, this video of Five Airports One Flight is astounding to watch. If you are wondering how they managed it, there’s a comment by the original poster stating that “It’s not what you know, but who you know…” in terms of getting permission from air traffic control. There is also a comment that:
Unfortunately the opportunity to do this only happens a few days either side of the longest day. Outside that it is too dark to get over Heathrow before the first inbounds arrive.
Airline Empires
For a quiet moment of nostalgia, take a look at the flash slide show of airline empires with some wonderful old photographs of the airfields of the past.
Ask a CFI
I’ve only recently started reading ask a CFI.com but I’ve added it to my favourites for future reading. Paul answers questions and discusses issues he’s run into, including this very honest personal story about a lack of preparation when he was asked to pick up a Piper Aztec.
It was obviously bought at a real bargain and the new owner was putting in A LOT of money to restore it. I took a quick glance at the airplane, fuel on board (not much), required paperwork (ARROW) and hopped in. Some pilots refer to this kind of aircraft inspection as, “kicking the tires and lighting the fires.” I don’t remember kicking the tires.
Oh good, so a passenger with no flying experience knows that it’s a horribly unsafe maneuver? Please. As tempting as it may be, I can’t say I fault this guy for thinking that. A go-around can be a scary thing if you don’t know what’s happening. So who can I fault? The AP for putting this garbage on the air.
Another selection of interesting and intriguing aviation articles that I stumbled upon while I should have been working.
Stainless Steel Lunch Jar
I want to get one of these for in-flight food on the Saratoga. We do the flight from Málaga to Southern England in two three-hour hops – an alternative to airport junk-food would be great.
Sky Pirates
Documentally travels light, so with the new baggage charges in place, he asked for a discount.
The Glamour of Flight
A fun collection of vintage photographs of flight attendants from times gone by. I’m not advocating a return to beauty pageants for flight crew but the photographs made me grin.
Aerodromes in the UK AIP
Online access to charts for civil licensed aerodromes in the UK – great when you are travelling (or for couples like us who tend to fight over who has access to the Pooley’s)
Today the National Transportation Safety Board adopted a study concluding that single engine airplanes equipped with glass cockpits had no better overall safety record than airplanes with conventional instrumentation.
