AVIATION - Fact or Fiction??

[Rick Muck- Mark IV]

A little gaffers tape and some touch-up paint and it will be right as rain!

In most states in the US if a new car is damaged in transit over a fixed amount or if a weld is broken or needs to be broken, the vehicle must be 'declared" and sold as a salvage unit. "Hey, I have a REALLY good eal on a low time Airbus, just had a couple of small dents, nothing of any matter. TRUST ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[Marcus]

It happened last Tuesday at the Berlin Air Show, a Me 109 crashed because its undercarriage collapsed:

Video - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten

[Pete.]

As they say, any one you can walk away from is a good one. A great pity about the damage to the aircraft.

[Pete.]

I think this comes under the fiction part, but nice use of Photoshop.

[David Morton]

Not quite Pete - it was a reality at London Heathrow in 1989 with a BA 747 that did almost that on the A4 road which runs parallel
to the main landing runway 27R. It was known as the November Oscar incident and unfortunately resulted in the skipper comitting suicide.
ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 747-136 G-AWNO London-Heathrow Airport (LHR)

[Jac Mac]

David, since when did they reduce the 747 from four to two engines?

[David Morton]

BA had a 747 flying over Borneo/Indonesia area and ended up with no engines as did KLM over Anchorage.

[David Morton]

British Airways Flight 9 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interesting reading.

[Pat Buckley]

It is, thanks.

I wonder if I would be a calm passenger at that point?

I also read the Gimli glider recount....I seem to remember seeing a picture of the plane after it came to rest - in the picture were some of the racers who were going about their business as though nothing had happened! I think it must have been a few hours after the drama occured.

I also remember that it was an amatuer road race that was interrupted, not a drag race.

[Rick Muck- Mark IV]

And they flew the Gmili aircraft out three days later.

[speed220mph]

On a lighter note, Old Rhinebeck is a great place to see some really old round engines, the kind rotate with the prop. Talk about P-factor, imagine that and the gyro effect of a Gnome, Oberursel or LeRhone. Understand that the castor oil loosened you up a bit, too!

One of many:
Morane Saulnier A-I

One of the best collections on earth:
Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome | Airplane Collection

[Marcus]

And here´s another form of collecting aviation things, which I find both a little bit eccentric but also highly interesting:


International Cockpit Club - Home


I like the thought of carrying your own cockpit with you on a trailer and also having the perfect surrounding for your combat flight simulator, just like this guy:

F-15C Eagle Flight Simulator Project

Just look at the amount of work he´s putting into his project.

[David Morton]

This video is all about landing in a place called Kai Tak.
It was one of the more demanding destinations (Hong Kong)
and this airport has since closed and been replaced by
another built on a neighbouring Island.
It was always nice to have a quiet beer two after landing
and reflect on the day.


http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=3PCOcyt7BPI&eurl=http://www.pilotpointer.com/

[Brian Kissel]

I got this from a friend recently !!!


Subject: B-17 - They don't make them like that anymore!
From my former highschool classmate who says:


'My Brother in law was a pilot during WW2... there's only one or 2 of his crew left alive. One of his planes looked a lot like this.
Sharon'

B-17 - They don't make them like that anymore





Subject: B-17



Look carefully at the B-17 and note how shot up it is - one engine dead, tail, horizontal stabilizer and nose shot up. It was ready to fall out of the sky. Then realize that there is a German ME-109 fighter flying next to it. Now read the story below. I think you'll be surprised.




Charlie Brown was a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot with the 379th Bomber Group at Kimbolton, England. His B-17 was called 'Ye Old Pub' and was in a terrible state, having been hit by flak and fighters. The compass was damaged and they were flying deeper over enemy territory instead of heading home to Kimbolton.

After flying over an enemy airfield, a German pilot named Franz Steigler was ordered to take off and shoot down the B-17. When he got near the B-17, he could not believe his eyes. In his words, he 'had never seen a plane in such a bad state'. The tail and rear section was severely damaged, and the tail gunner wounded. The top gunner was all over the top of the fuselage. The nose wa s smashed and there were holes e verywhere .

Despite having ammunition, Franz flew to the side of the B-17 and looked at Charlie Brown, the pilot. Brown was scared and struggling to control his damaged and blood-stained plane..

Aware that they had no idea where they were going, Franz waved at Charlie to turn 180 degrees. Franz escorted and guided the stricken plane to, and slightly over, the North Sea towards England. He then saluted Charlie Brown and turned away, back to Europe.

When Franz landed he told the CO that the plane had been shot down over the sea, and never told the truth to anybody. Charlie Brown and the remains of his cre w told all at their briefing, but were ordered never to talk ab out it.

More than 40 years later, Charlie Brown wanted to find the Luftwaffe pilot who saved the crew. After years of research, Franz was found. He had never talked about the incident, not even at post-war reunions.

They met in the USA at a 379th Bomber Group reunion, together with 25 people who are alive now - all because Franz never fired his guns that day.




Research shows that Charlie Brown lived in Seattle and Franz Steigler had moved to Vancouver, BC after the war. When they finally met, they discovered they had lived less than 200 miles apart for the past 50 years

[Big-Foot]

An amazing story Brian - Thanks for sharing that!!!

[Frank Catt]

David, has there been an official explanation of thr BA 747 short landing yet ?

[David Morton]

B777 Frank?
My questions are - why so little fuel came out of the tanks? If it was 5 to 7(ish) tons as it should have been it would have gone everywhere or fuelled a fire.
Why such stupid 'blame' diverts like the prime ministers (note I use lower case to attempt to cause insult) convoy shot it down with electronic jamming.
Why is it being covered up completely and no mention of it again? The AIB has to produce a finding but I'm really concened they, BA, and the Boeing Airplane Company will manage to cover it up and bury it. BA have certainly
covered up MORs (mandatory occurence [incident]) reports in the past.
Having promoted the flight decks to hero status, how will they rewrite history this time is the opposite proves to be the case?
In answer to your question Frank, a resounding no.

[Pete.]

One of the problems -- outside of the obvious -- with a significantly damaged aircraft is that pilots often overreact and add to the situation. In other words, when a plane gets nailed by something like a missile, the person at the wheel panics. DARPA and Athena's Damage Tolerance and Autonomous Landing Solution adds a full flight automation and backup system that uses a plane's internal inertial navigation system and GPS systems to land safely by automatically adjusting to the new configuration -- a physics computation that a human is in no condition to deal with during such a crisis. In a recent unmanned flight test, Rockwell Collins showed off the tech with a scaled-model F-18 in which nearly half a wing is blown off and then landing the plane safely. Check out the video:
http://www.rockwellcollins.com/news/video/damage-tolerance.html