some aviation Pics
- Thread starter Pete
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Terry Oxandale
Skinny Man
Great photos. My heart-rate went up (I suppose a conditioned response perhaps) over the photo of the final approach line-up for Heathrow. I always felt I ran them pretty tight on final in my previous life, but that looked like a fast burnout over there. Not much room to account for something upsetting the rhythm.
David Morton
Lifetime Supporter
Terry,
it was usually 190kts leaving one of the four holds around Heathrow then 150kts when established on the ILS localiser and reducing the Vat from the marker ( from about 1200ft)
Heavies can fly in trail with other Heavies but light to mediums would space about 2 mins after the heavies due wake turbulence. If everyone sticks to the speeds religiously it works out about 2 miles apart on finals or about 40 seconds. Of course the people who are a bit challenged speaking English are invaraibly the ones who screw things up by not clearing the active runway at the first available and roll out long because it suits their gate. The result is invariably a Go-Round but thats not really a problem unless you are tight on fuel Heathrow. I always assumed any Heavy from the Far East would be on Minimums so if I had a choice when I was on the 757 AND 767, I'd keep my speed up then go for full flap landing and clear as quickly as possible. ATC were usually brilliant at feeding any Go-Around back in to the sequence.
All this is when there is no LVP (Low Vis Procedures). LVPs would normally be only one aeroplane on the ILS glide path at a time and descent from 3000, so about nine to eleven miles apart.
You sort of get conditioned to doing it and don't really think too much about it.
it was usually 190kts leaving one of the four holds around Heathrow then 150kts when established on the ILS localiser and reducing the Vat from the marker ( from about 1200ft)
Heavies can fly in trail with other Heavies but light to mediums would space about 2 mins after the heavies due wake turbulence. If everyone sticks to the speeds religiously it works out about 2 miles apart on finals or about 40 seconds. Of course the people who are a bit challenged speaking English are invaraibly the ones who screw things up by not clearing the active runway at the first available and roll out long because it suits their gate. The result is invariably a Go-Round but thats not really a problem unless you are tight on fuel Heathrow. I always assumed any Heavy from the Far East would be on Minimums so if I had a choice when I was on the 757 AND 767, I'd keep my speed up then go for full flap landing and clear as quickly as possible. ATC were usually brilliant at feeding any Go-Around back in to the sequence.
All this is when there is no LVP (Low Vis Procedures). LVPs would normally be only one aeroplane on the ILS glide path at a time and descent from 3000, so about nine to eleven miles apart.
You sort of get conditioned to doing it and don't really think too much about it.
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Hmm, seems the dog ate my photo?
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To quote a line from "Dirty Harry"........My...that's a big one!
You would have to do some basic trigonometry, taking into account the distance from the main gear to the pilot seat, and the angle of the dangle of the fuselage in the touchdown attitude, which I'm wholly incapable of doing. Math in public is not my thing. :laugh:
I don't exactly know how high the pilot seat is when we're at rest; I've heard numbers like 35 and 42 feet, so it's somewhere in that neighborhood. Based on that, I'd guess it's about 80 feet from sphincter to pavement when the main gear touch down?
I was amazed at how responsive the C-5 was the first time I flew it. I came out of the C-141, which was like a half-ton pickup truck with no power steering. It was definitely a Man's Airplane. The C-5 felt like a big one-ton dually with power steering--it's quite apparent that it's much larger, but the controls are actually noticeably lighter and the roll rate seems faster. This is probably because the C-141 relied solely on ailerons for roll control, while the C-5 uses an integrated system of a pair of ailerons, and spoiler panels on the top wing.
When you turn a C-141, the airplane rotates about the centerline of the fuselage. You turn the yoke left, and the left wing goes down and the right wing goes up. When you turn a C-5, not only do the ailerons deflect, but spoiler panels go up on the inside wing, killing lift. So in a left turn, the airplane rotates around the #3 engine, and in a right turn, around the #2 engine. You don't really notice it when you're flying though.
Due to the high wing, high tail configuration, it is enormously stable on approach, and remarkably easy to fly. It actually handles exactly like a big, BIG Cessna 172. Get it all trimmed up, and you can just cruise down glidepath to landing. I used to fly the Boeing 757 and 767 for American Airlines (will be going back to the 737 about a year from now when my military hiatus ends), and in comparison, those things felt like balancing on a surfboard which is resting on top of a bowling ball. Not that they were bad, mind you, but they took rather more work, and thought.
I did a quick Google search, trying to find out the cockpit height, and couldn't find it. I did see that one person noted that the length of the cargo box is one foot longer than the distance the Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk. Also, the amount of 'wasted' fuselage space in the tail of the C-5 is actually larger than the entire cargo box of a C-130.
It's a lot of fun, and an enormously rewarding airplane to fly.
Our cargo load is always different--I've carried helicopters, giant boats, innumerable pallets of stuff (including, laughably, an awful lot of furniture for the state department as diplomats are moved from one overseas post to another), SEAL teams, jet engines, helicopter blades, armor kits for Hummers, armored vehicles, the President's limos and motorcade, and on and on and on. I've also been privileged and saddened to carry flag-draped caskets out of both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Japan (poor sailor got killed in a traffic accident...)
A friend of mine was tasked to fly one of the weirdest things ever--a giant rock-crusher. This was taken to Iraq to help expand the airfields there. Due to the huge overhang, it required huge wooden ramps to ease it up onto the airplane. The mission planners failed to account for the fact that those same ramps would be needed to offload it at the other end, so my friend had to do a LOT of coordination--imagine the circus that would have resulted if he landed in a war zone and they weren't able to get the cargo off!
The ramps were made of stacked plywood in sections, 40,000 pounds worth! So after this beast was loaded, they then had to break down the ramps in sections, and load them manually with forklifts. That made the airplane too heavy to take off with enough fuel to make it across the Atlantic, so they had to coordinate for a tanker for in-flight refueling, etc. etc.
It was an enormous undertaking, and unquestionably the biggest pain in the ass of his life, managing that whole thing. It put the whole mission in delay as it took something like 12 hours to load everything, and then they went to bed while a tanker was conjured up for the next day. He gave me these photos when I met him in Germany the next day on his way to the desert, and he was fit to be tied--he couldn't wait to be done with that mission!
BTW, notice that by sheer coincidence, this is exactly the same airplane as the one pictured above--70040, made in 1987.
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Pete McCluskey.
Lifetime Supporter
Wow, that is some pack horse.
Wow that is totally amazing... Not just all the lumber either!
It sounds like you've had a very interesting and hopefully rewarding career in aviation.
I wanted to go that route, but ran out of GI-Bill money half way through my Commercial courses and then we had to move out of state for work, got pregnant and the rest is history..
I've only flown light aircraft, but have flown SimuFlite simulators in Dallas for a couple of biz-jets and a King Air. Also got to fly a couple of simulators back in the Republic Airlines days DC9 and Convair 580. The DC9 was not a very responsive aircraft and you really had to anticipate and lead into your maneuvers..
In contrast, the biz-jets (G3 and Lear 35) seemed to be quite responsive.
Granted, these were sims and not the real McCoy, but I would have to think that they were somewhat close since the time could have been log-booked (so I was told)..
Strange that you mentioned a 172 in reference...
My wife's cousin flew C130's for years and his report of responsiveness was "let's just say that it's not as nimble as you would like when it's at gross weight, but when close to empty it flies like a big 172"..
It sounds like you've had a very interesting and hopefully rewarding career in aviation.
I wanted to go that route, but ran out of GI-Bill money half way through my Commercial courses and then we had to move out of state for work, got pregnant and the rest is history..
I've only flown light aircraft, but have flown SimuFlite simulators in Dallas for a couple of biz-jets and a King Air. Also got to fly a couple of simulators back in the Republic Airlines days DC9 and Convair 580. The DC9 was not a very responsive aircraft and you really had to anticipate and lead into your maneuvers..
In contrast, the biz-jets (G3 and Lear 35) seemed to be quite responsive.
Granted, these were sims and not the real McCoy, but I would have to think that they were somewhat close since the time could have been log-booked (so I was told)..
Strange that you mentioned a 172 in reference...
My wife's cousin flew C130's for years and his report of responsiveness was "let's just say that it's not as nimble as you would like when it's at gross weight, but when close to empty it flies like a big 172"..
Mike,
Who is responsible for the calculations and planning needed to balance and secure a monster load like that?
Who is responsible for the calculations and planning needed to balance and secure a monster load like that?
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David Morton
Lifetime Supporter
Mike and Randy,
The figures you quote are similar to the 747. At the BA training centre (Crainbank, LHR) they have a two blue discs screwed on the wall -one at 35ft. and one at 85ft. which are the eye heights on the 747 unloaded and touchdown respectfully. It is quite obvious that during Low Vis Procedures , you are still in the clouds at rear main gear touchdown. Incidentally, the passengers aft of the rear main gear ascend again after rear gear touchdown which can be quite violent if the rate of descent is too high.
The figures you quote are similar to the 747. At the BA training centre (Crainbank, LHR) they have a two blue discs screwed on the wall -one at 35ft. and one at 85ft. which are the eye heights on the 747 unloaded and touchdown respectfully. It is quite obvious that during Low Vis Procedures , you are still in the clouds at rear main gear touchdown. Incidentally, the passengers aft of the rear main gear ascend again after rear gear touchdown which can be quite violent if the rate of descent is too high.
'Would have been far better/simpler to have just called the lumber department at local "Lowe's" or "Home Depot" over there in Iraq and had them...oh...uh...yeah...there is that little issue, isn't there. :stunned:
