Aviation BS and Photo Thread

Gave us the more northern/western route for traffic volume out of San Jose yesterday heading back to Florida.

Lake Nicaragua with the twin volcanoes on Ometepe Island.

 

Watching NASCAR Daytona 500 today. 1st race of the season. Got on my trusty FlightRader24.
Found the Goodyear Blimp. Winds at 26 mph.

 

Boy. February has been rough for this industry.

 

Sure has.

 

Didn’t see the San Diego one

 

Had an event at work the other day which reminded me of a similar event in 1967.
Recent one was an Air Turn Back of a commercial airliner due to a banging sound from the fuselage near the right hand door:
**ATB** A/C xxxx Flt xxxx CLT-ATL air turn back due to loud banging below R1 door. MTC found inner door cover dust seal hanging out from door.

Similar to a fun story out of the VN war. Which also involved a banging sound on the fuselage.
Occurred over Laos, circa 1967.
Flight was for passenger pick-up at a secret radar installation site in Laos. “LS-85” was just 150 miles from Hanoi, 15 miles from the Laos-NVN border, and very deep in enemy territory.*
Briefing included a warning that the enemy was suspected to have moved in some large caliber anti-aircraft weapons directly along the desired to-from flight path for LS-85.

The inbound flight went without incident. Landing was normal. The pax(s) were ready and loaded up promptly. Pre-take off run-up (flt cntrls & mag check on the Lycoming in the H-295) was smooth and normal. Etc.

Take off and climb out also went without a hitch --- until the aircraft was right over the suspected gun emplacements as briefed. Then all hell broke loose!
The fuselage was taking heavy impacts! Pounded repeatedly.

The pilot threw the aircraft into violent and erratic evasive maneuvers in attempt to spoil the gunner’s aim. It worked – until return to level flight. Then the impacts nailed the bird again and again!

More evasive maneuvers employed and the pilot thinking, “Boy, he’s really got a bead on me!” (direct quote). Then silence – until level flight and the hits start all over!

Just as the pilot initiated a third set of evasions, a pax in the cabin reached up to get the pilot’s attention. As the pilot spun around to communicate, he saw the pax give the hold-up or wait-one-second sign.

The pilot acknowledged it and the pax proceeded to... open the cabin door, reach out, and pull in an errant seat belt!


No explanation for why the belt didn’t smack the fuselage during pre-takeoff run-up, or during takeoff and climb, or during any time other than right over the suspected gun emplacement. Rest of the flight was smooth and filled with laughter.

The pilot was Air America Capt Joe xxxxxx, my dad.


*Look up “The battle for LS-85” on-line for a quick synopsis of a very bold move by the U.S.A.F. The book, “One Day Too Long”, relates the whole story, which now includes a Medal of Honor award.
Another fun story out of LS-85 is the shooting down of a Russian bi-plane by an Air America helicopter (flight mechanic with an AK-47 out the door).

 

Bringing in a A-36 Bonanza from Bremen to Tucson. On our descent it started sounding like an A10 GAU going off, Like the fuselage was about to tear itself apart. not a seat belt but the B-2 sealant came apart from the window seal. So loud

 

Wow

 

And another one. https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/19/us/a...hc9Q+Z1zZxE0ZxMM6AXFapV/N&bt_ts=1740051267778

Is this a relatively normal occurrence and we are just hearing more about it now due to recent events?

 

Yes, and any further explanation would run afoul of the no politics rule. General Aviation is dangerous, it’s only slightly less chaotic than driving a car with cost as the primary barrier to entry.

 

Politics aside, a lot of this stuff is driven by the media -- of course, any story about an aviation incident will get the most clicks until there's something else on the public's mind.

 

Every single day: https://www.asias.faa.gov/apex/f?p=100:93:::NO:::

Kinda funny what the news wants to make the story be sometimes.

 

Yes but also you have to realize that that page shows accidents as well as incidents. An incident can be very broad catch-all. I remember having a classroom discussion on the difference between accidents and incidents and I remember leaving more confused than I was before. Haha.

Aviation oopsies happen a lot, but midair collisions are not what I would call relatively normal. There are a few each year, which is a very very low figure when taken as a percentage of total flights per day or miles flown per year. General aviation is always more risky than commercial air travel, but it has been improving. I have flown Cessnas with more information at my fingertips than I have available to me in the Boeing. Shoot, even my airplane has more traffic information available to me than the Boeing has.

 

Significant incidents and deaths occur on a regular basis as that sight shows. Not just because the news decides to make that the current narrative.

 

Vintage Aviation News covered both flights: Hawaii Mars from Sproat Lake to Victoria, BC Aviation Museum, and the Philippine Mars to the Pima Aviation Museum (landing at Lake Pleasant for trucking to the museum), after lengthy and grueling work to remove an engine from the Hawaii Mars, trucking it to Sproat Lake to replace an engine on the Philippine Mars. Nearly as epic as the story of the restorers and crews that pulled three B-17s out of the weeds of the scrap metal Yards in Kingman, AZ, restore them all to operating condition (including the turrets and guns), and fly them all across the Atlantic for Columbia Pictures for delivery October 6, 1961 to film The War Lover, starring Steve McQueen and Robert Wagner. Everything But the Flak by Martin Caidin, one of the pilots, describes the project including the entire group's being detained in Lisbon by Interpol and a need for parts and repairs. Martin Caidin also wrote several of the Indiana Jones books, which explains the movie line of Harrison Ford in answer to the question, "Can you fly this plane?"

 

One afternoon at KCOE, I walked out on the transient ramp, and photographed Coulson Aviation's first Boeing 737-500 airtanker conversion while they were calibrating the drop doors. Thanking the ground observer for cooling off the asphalt, he said that they were finishing the FAA certification process that they'd started in Santa Barbara, CA, and were "happier to be here, where it cools off at night" rather than the constant 105 degrees F. in CA. We were happy to see this long-awaited 737 conversion, and now I understand they have seven operating. Nice to have a FS airtanker base halfway between Moses Lake and Missoula! (Just ask the residents of Bayview, Idaho as the tankers had a 19 mile flight to the nearby fire. I spoke with a fire marshal one morning, and he noted that the fire would continue burning out in the root systems through the winter beneath the snow, and be out with the snowmelt.

 

Alton NH has the only seasonal ice runway in the lower 48. Tough weekend there:
https://www.reddit.com/r/newhampshire/s/NGIf3ljuoc

 

poor A36