Aviation BS and Photo Thread

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https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/who-is-the-highest-military-rank-and-pay-grade.65901/page-49

 

Watching my Wife’s flight come in and happend across this.

Sorry for the camera pic of a desktop monitor.

 

Yep, as I suspected. Well qualified including a degree in biochem. Good story.

Yikes ... I truly hated organic chemistry ... my hats off to her.

And anyone who quals in a single seat fighter is impressive.

 

I have a few similar photos in my phone, I've wander through that hangar a few times

 

Hahey! Grand ol' things. We don't have that one in the front anymore, transferred her to the boneyard a few months back. As attitudy and finnicky as they are, I've thoroughly enjoyed the last near 6 years working on them.

PS, love the truck.

 

I’m glad I got one cat shot in one but that was not a comfortable ride. V-22 was way more fun. But the CMVs look weird in the VOD paint scheme.

 

Spent more than a handful of hours in the back of these things as well as numerous cat shots and I'll be the first to tell you - it doesn't get any better. They do, and they also can't quite match the C2's capabilities either. But, it is what it is. The C2 is just too old.

 

...^^^... Great job surviving (especially in the OH-58D) all that time in rotary ...

 

Had what looked like one of them go over our house towards Selfridge...about 500' AG yesterday

 

She's a mustang too.

Although someone really needs to explain her callsign, cuz I wanna know: Stalin

 

Then you will like this:

(1) Ill-Nino (Official First Music Video) WHEN IT CUTS - OH-58D Military Tribute Video - YouTube

 

Cruising along at 41,000 we saw a UFO. Upon asking ATC, it turned out to be a weather balloon at 62,000. I have never been that close to one before

 

Nice, good obs.

I've often wondered - have never heard of an aircraft hitting a weather balloon despite 90+ twice daily launches for decades.

EDIT: 180 daily launches x 365 days x 30 years = 1,971,000 launches. Yikes.

Weather balloons are simultaneously launched at 91 other NWS offices across the U.S.

 

OK, another rabbit hole ... for weather balloons:

About an hour before the scheduled release time, the observer will inflate the balloon within our Upper Air building. A latex balloon is filled with helium and will reach around 5 feet in diameter when filled with enough gas to lift 1,200-1,600 grams. Below the balloon, the observer will attach a bright orange parachute and over 75 feet of string that the radiosonde will be tied to. Before the radiosonde is attached to the weather balloon, it will undergo a “baseline” process to ensure that the sensors are operating properly.

According to the NWS Office of Public Affairs: “The technology has come a long way in the last 80+ years, and we've made significant progress to reduce environmental impacts. We've reduced the amount of material used in the balloon construction by about 20 percent in the last 10 years, and radiosondes weigh four ounces or less today, compared to 2 pounds in the 1990s. Today, balloons are made with a natural, biodegradable latex, and the parachute and string are also biodegradable. We encourage people who find the radiosonde equipment to drop it in the mail if possible to do so safely, which allows us to rebuild it and use it again or have it recycled. This saves taxpayer dollars and also is helpful to the environment. We try to make it easy for people to send us the equipment by enclosing an addressed mailbag.”

After the weather balloon assembly is complete and the radiosonde baseline process is successful, the observer will consult the local FAA air traffic control for clearance to release the balloon. Once released, the radiosonde will send meteorological data in one-second intervals via a radio signal. This data will be received by a computer system in our office, and monitored and quality controlled by the observer.

The flight typically takes around two hours. During that that time the weather balloon can reach over 100,000 feet in altitude and may drift over 100 miles from our office. As the balloon ascends through the atmosphere, the gas pressure inside the balloon remains the same as the pressure outside the balloon decreases. The difference in pressures will result in the expansion of the latex balloon during its flight. The expansion will continue until it reaches the elastic limit of the latex, then the balloon will burst and the radiosonde will drift back to the ground while being slowed by the parachute.

Radiosonde observations are used for several purposes, including:

• Input for computer-based weather prediction models,
• Local severe storm, aviation, and marine forecasts,
• Weather and climate change research,
• Input for air pollution research, and
• Ground truth for satellite data.

 

The guy I used to fly with found one of those radiosondes once and mailed it in. Kinda cool

 

I was actually just reading something about these last night. From that picture it looks like based on the size that rather than a normal weather balloon it is probably a stratospheric research/mapping balloon. Take a look at Google Project Loon or World View Stratollite balloons. They stay up for weeks on end and might travel across half the country while up there.

 

TIL, the NASA precursor NACA had a hand in developing the B-17:
https://twitter.com/nasahistory/status/1552745713523720195?s=21&t=HZvMhjmxlWArb6bTON54sw