Aviation BS and Photo Thread

I remember a Starship that was based at Manila when I was there in the early 90s Coolest design Beech ever came up with since the Staggerwing.

 

Flew the Mooney today after getting it out of annual... bonus: passed 200 hours (yay)

 

Taken this morning at KAVQ - 5 boneyard'd Starships parked outside next to the old DC4s. They just moved these out of the hangar within the last 60 days or so.



And a DC3 to top it off

 

Looks like someone's math didn't work out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=381RJkT52tw

Things didn't get much better after that. They tried circling back around while dumping fuel and stalled in the bank. Reports say one survivor (cargo plane, no pax)

 

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...^^^... Never read the book ... but I knew a guy who was attached to that group 25+ years ago ... he was kind of our "go to guy" there.

I used to be a subcontractor for him back in the mid-late 1980's ... we did nothing secret ... just made weird & special (not off the shelf) things.

Many of those old guys have passed away by now as they were old then. Got to meet some of those old guys at a somebody's condo/apartment in Las Vegas back then.

A lot of them would meet there to go other test places before those test places were as well known as today.

They would attend conventions all over the world to see and learn new things but one of their favorite conventions was "Con-Expo" ... IIRC was a construction type convention in Las Vegas every 4 years or so. Very tight knit group at S/W.
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How do you like the G5? I might want to pick your brain on it

I'm reading the book now. It's really interesting, I'd recommend it!

 

Probably wasn't dumping fuel during the first segment. The stall speed rises when banked or when the load factor increases, the stall speed rises proportionally to the square root of the load factor. The aircraft was probably on the ragged edge of stall and any bank angle allowed the airfoil to stall.

Also, the #2 engine (middle) had flames out the exhaust. Signs of engine issues, could be a compressor stall or FOD ingestion.

Swept wing aircraft have ugly stall characteristics, especially at low altitude. See Jack Roush at Oshkosh.

 

...^^^... I am sure that they have their reasons ... but hard to believe that the Starships are in the boneyard now.

I wonder if one of those Starships was the one that would fly in & out of PDK almost daily a few years ago ...

 

Personal fav, hah!!

 

Haven't pulled the trigger just yet

Ya pretty sad - such a unique airplane.

 

Flying solo today. Always more fun.

 

SF and the Golden gate Bridge.

 

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....^^^... I forgot about this updated RVN website (info. from older original website) ....

A lot of the original site went to this website which is even easier to navigate ... excellent stories of ... family & background history & who, what, were & how ... is here if you search around in "Remembrances".

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

EDIT: Forgot to post the link, here it is: --> http://www.vvmf.org
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Oh, okay. Get it in so I can see how you like it!

 

Hello,

I am enjoying this thread and I am a big aviation enthusiast. I am part of a flight crew that flies 240days a year away from home. I travel all over the world and spend most my time on the upper deck of a 747 going from one continent to the next. One minute at VHHH......9hrs later PANC........KJFK.......KDOV........EBLG.......OAIX.......etc. I go where ever the tail # I am assigned to. 20 on and 10 off. It is a cool job. Love it. Been to 70+ countries and counting. I have lot's of aviation photos I need to dig up and share with people who actually care like this thread. I show my friends and family and they are over it in 8 seconds and back to tweeting or whatever you do at sea level...

I have hauled everything from Lamborghini's, to Shamoo the whale, to race horses.

We had to fuel stop here in PANC and you must open all the cargo doors or the horses will suffocate any time you land. They create so much heat. Once engines are off and no air is flowing, the animals can raise the temperature by 50 degrees in less than 3 mins on the cargo deck stressing out the horses


I got to fly in a Russian IL-76 from OAIX-OMDW because a US Air force deicing truck punched a hole in our #2 engine while deicing. AOG hard for 5 days. No accommodations in OAIX...


Here I am in the bombardier door on some shady IL-76. The navigator sits there now who radios to the crew above him. Crew of 13 guys on it, all spoke Russian and there are no real safety briefings. On taxi out, one of the Loadmasters was using a bunsen burner to heat up his coffee. 2 foot high OPEN FLAME on a moving plane!!




Here is an old Antonov 12 and 727 in the capital city of Equitorial Guinea, Malabo. Some soldier with an AK47 saw me snapping pics and told me to delete them. I pretended to....

Here is a military Antonov 72 somewhere in western africa. I tried to research where that flag is from and can not remember where I took this pic. Taxied past us while waiting for some crew stairs.


I hope you enjoyed a few snapshots. I have a few portable hard drives full of pictures. I should dig them up.

 

Awesome, thanks for sharing!

 

The AV geeks I follow on Twitter are going crazy with Trump's tweet this afternoon. I agree, the F35 is overpriced, but I don't think you can get the 18 to match the 35 in any realm... Even the super hornet.

 

And......my day is done.

 

depends... the Fat Pig version or the stealth fighter? the former has no chance in a knife fight, the latter should do well