Aviation BS and Photo Thread

Maybe cooler is the wrong word, more capable, more awesome and looks cooler flying around leaving dark chemtrails. It will be a sad day when the last of the black soot exhaust planes goes away, I will officially know I’m old.

 

Funny story, we were out over the Atlantic practicing RECCE and rigging (taking photos for intelligence gathering) on a transiting ship. We had one engine shut down (common method to save fuel). As we disappeared over the horizon the ship radioed an SOS on our behalf stating they saw a Navy plane going down at sea. The ship never tried to contact us on guard, but we sure got a lot of attention from the Atlantic fleet and after multiple assurances from us that we were okay things returned to normal.

 

Cooler in your context is great and I really appreciate your what you said about the P3. It is an old war horse, supremely capable with a visceral appeal as those 4 big T-56 engines come to life turning the turboprops. Thank you for your appreciation of the capabilities of this fine platform.

 

Today’s air show was epic!

 

Love the P-38.

 

Can we call it the conjoined strike fighter now?

 

P-38 is my favorite last year it flew with the warthog

 

Nice! First heritage flight I've seen with a Lightning .. it's usually a Mustang at the shows I've been to.

 

Big line of fires up east northeast of Butte.

Anyone know if this is wildfire, or a prescribed burn?

 

Yes, on the north side of a ridgeline. It was a pretty straight line, like it was done by heli-torch or some other mechanical means.

 

Would have if I could have, but the person paying for the fuel also signs my paycheck. I rocked the wings though, but you didn't wave back!!!

We were pretty much mid distance between Butte and Bozeman. Good for you that the wind was drifting the smoke to the north. We had a lot of low viz, dry eyes, smoke filled days this summer.

 

I'd personally enjoy the detour. That's part of the appeal, getting to see new places. Some of my best memories have been made by going a little off track.

I'll let you know the next time I'll be overhead. It's nice to be doing some U.S. flying again. It's kind of nice to be flying period. Canadian airlines were hit hard throughout the pandemic. Myself, I don't think I even hit a hundred hours last year. Spent almost as much time in the sim for recurrent as I did in the actual airplane. The uptick in hours/days flown, and taking people south is a sign we're getting back to somewhat normal.

 

Crazy to think of the progress in less than a century..

https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1442859400952094734?s=21

https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1442976922686799873?s=21

 

https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1443282435358302215?s=21

 

My Cousin (Tom Williams) pilot license number was 91 signed by Orville Wright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_F._Williams

 

Just wondering if you ever get used to check rides. I’ve had 3 this month, and even though I do fine I don’t like them.
I had my annual 182 and tailwheel review for the club and my FAA seaplane checkride. Good for a year at least.
I imagine you commercial/military guys have a lot in a career.

Our club requires once a year review and a checkride into any grass/ dirt strips you want to use, as well as 30 day tailwheel currencies and 90 day 182/cirrus currencies.

 

I do once a year PPC, once a year LOFT, which means going under the microscope every 6 months. In my earlier days, I held 3 PPC's. One on a twin Cessna, one on a King Air 90, and one on a King Air 200, which meant 3 check rides a year. Later I moved to another company to fly the King Air 100 and 200. The PPC's were grouped, so I only had to do a ride on one, and recurrent training on the other. Not sure how they got away with that? The 100 is a turd, where the 200 was everything that's right about an airplane. You do get use to being examined. Doesn't mean it's fun, or isn't stressful. Just from sheer repetition, you're able to channel that stress in a useful way. I find airline check rides to be a walk in the park compared to the air taxi where I was flying the 3 types. Still have nightmares of the chief pilot in the back yelling "Your left engines failed, and the right has high oil pressure! What are you gonna do?" Then he'd blow a cloud of cigarette smoke into the cockpit, and yell that the cabin was on fire too. The smell of cigarette in the clean spring air makes me nauseous to this day, and it's been 18 years since I moved on from that job. Was the best work experience of my life though, outside of the training part.