Aviation BS and Photo Thread

I heard about that. Did not realize it was a flapjack approach. What a trip.

 

How cool is that. KC-46 Mamma bird feeding her F-35 chicks while they fly.

 

At least the ARMY has good aim

 

Unfortunately these kinds of accidents are becoming more common as we hemorrhage experienced pilots and you end up with pretty inexperienced junior crews like this.

 

It is insane you would go under the airliners landing. The runway change killed the timing and the alt they were at was all over the place. Time to give a wide berth to that airport.

 

No kidding. I can’t even imagine the thought process they went through to consider that as an acceptable option.

 

I suppose for commercial traffic there should be a minimum clearance. 200ft seems too close for comfort. I've flown paths 400ft over helos with no problem, but I wasn't carrying a load of passengers.

 

WTF is this? I want one.

 

The U.S. Navy’s “Big John” Completes its Final Journey

 

Having flown inside the freeze before multiple times, its super congested airspace between commercial DCA traffic and all of the government activity, and due to national security concerns, makes the viable options for deconflicting traffic routes less than ideal.

Add to that the fact that despite numerous warnings and close calls in recent years, they just added additional flights in/out. Sadly, this has been a long time coming, with plenty of audible warning that got willfully ignored. If it wasn't PAT25, it was going to be another air asset from 1st Heli, DC police, etc that are all flying those same heli routes.

 

Top picture is Top Gun: Maverick

I finally found the F14 keychain just like the movie.

 

Nice! That's going on my Christmas list to Santa.



Thanks for sharing your find.

 

Excellent, clear and concise comment.

 

My right nut says hell no.

 

The Army 100% has an aviation problem related to retention and budget, but I'm not so sure this was totally theirs in terms of blame game. Even if things went 100% correctly, you'd have a tight margin of error in terms of vertical separation for DCA traffic.

Seems like the only true way to deconflict DCA rwy 33 is to chop the route 4 leg where it meets route 1 to route 3 (I-95) and make a mandatory crazy ivan of rt6 to rt3 back to rt4 south of the beltway.

 

While I'm sure the Blackhawk pilot will be taking the majority of the blame for this accident, you are right, that routing is insane. whoever approved letting helicopter traffic pass right below traffic on final approach by only 100 feet should be first, publicly tarred and feathered, then drawn and quartered. In my opinion, the primary culprit in this disaster was that routing.

 

Now you need a Kawasaki Ninja key to go with the Tomcat chain. A Toyota just ain't gonna cut it.

I recognize the key because I had one just like it, same year as Maverick's (1985).