Plane Tales

I was about to enter the Devil’s Triangle, the Limbo of the Lost, the Twilight Zone or the Hoodoo Sea… more commonly referred to as the Bermuda Triangle.  What dangers awaited, would I disappear like the famous loss of the 5 Avengers of Flight 19!  Listen to this terrifying story of myth and mystery!

A fine example of a Pseudoscience.

The Bermuda Triangle.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Lt Cdr Horace Bristol, US Navy, Alphaios and People’s Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge (1883)

Boeing was the most successful aircraft manufacturing company on the planet but a European consortium thought they could take on the world’s best selling airliner, the B737, with a design of their own.  So was borne the A320 family of airliners with the most daring and radical of technological advances that the airline industry had seen since the advent of the jet engine.  But the birth of the A320 was marred by a controversial crash that might sink the project before it had got going!

A tale produced to celebrate the A320 Podcast’s 100th show.

The larger A321…

… and very much smaller A318.

Appendix 3 of the BEA final report into the crash of Air France flight 296.

The A320 and B737 in competition.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Ken Fielding, Bill Larkins, Austrian Airlines, Aero Icarus and the BEA.

What better day to celebrate the aviators of Ireland than on St Patrick’s Day.  From the crash of Alcock and Brown to a tractor maker and a flying olympic competitor, the Emerald Isles have a fascinating aviation history.

Henry Ferguson, perhaps better known as an agricultural machinery maker than a pilot.

Lilian Bland piloting her Mayfly.

Lady Heath featured top centre amongst the best known aviators of the ’30s.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Joseph D. Eddy and The Queenslander.

The sequel to Passing Gas recalls what it’s actually like to plug into a tanker and take on a fighter pilot’s life blood… fuel!  Of course not every tanker mission goes as planned and some have ended in tragedy and one, by the smallest of margins, was saved from further disaster on an epic scale.

Two MH-53E Super Stallion helicopters perform aerial refueling from a KC-130J Hercules tanker aircraft.

A K3 VC10 tanker of the Royal Air Force.

KC-135 Stratotanker refuels an F-16 during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The casings of two B28 nuclear bombs involved in the Palomares incident on display at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the US Navy, MCS James Turner, USAF, John E. Lasky, Marshall Astor and Chris Lofting.

The history of Air to Air refuelling and how the systems that we are now familiar with, the boom and the probe & drogue, came into being.

Capt. Lowell H. Smith and Lt. John P. Richter receiving the first mid-air refueling on June 27, 1923.

The Question Mark receives fuel during its record breaking endurance flight.

A KB-50J refuels a F-101A Voodoo, B-66 Destroyer and F-100D Super Sabre at RAF Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire on Battle of Britain Day, 14 September 1963.

A TriStar K1 of the Royal Air Force refuelling two McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18C Hornets of the US Navy over Afghanistan, 2008.

An F15 Eagle takes gas.

A Boeing KC-135Q refueling the SR-71.

The Old Pilot flying an F4 and plugged into a Victor K2 tanker of No 57 Squadron RAF.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the US Air Force, TSRL, Tech Sgt Shane A. Cuomo, US DoD, Cmdr. Erik Etz, U.S. Navy, SrA Allen McArthur and Ken Hackman,

With the prospect of a new movie following the classic Top Gun in the offing, we take a largely ‘tongue in cheek’ look at the F14 and how Maverick got into a ‘flat spin heading out to sea!”

F-14A Tomcats of Fighter Squadrons VF-51 “Screaming Eagles”, the VF-111 “Sundowners” and F-5E/F Tiger IIs of the Navy Fighter Weapons School.

An F-14D Tomcat.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to PH2 Michael D.P. Flynn, the U.S. Navy, LCdr. David Baranak,

During the Vietnam war, the A6 Intruder was known for making daring, low level attacks in foul conditions and often alone.  As such it had more than its fair share of losses. One such loss was due to a lone .303 bullet which gravely injured the pilot and would have killed him if not for the brave actions of his Bombardier Navigator… actions that would result in the award of a Navy Cross.

An A6 Intruder on deck.

USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63).

A pair of A-6As of VA-85 the Black Falcons in flight over the South China Sea.

Images under Creative Commons licence, with thanks to US Navy, Mike Corrado, ATR2 Randy Bender, PHCS Brown

If you’ve ever looked out onto a wing and wondered what the strange looking blades and plates attached to it are? Then wonder no longer!  An explanation of Vortex Generators and Wing Fences and why we need them.

A fine set of wing fences on the Mig 17. This one can be seen on the deck of USS Intrepid in NY.

A line of vortex generators on the wing of an A4 in the hangar of USS Intrepid.

The wing of a Skyhawk on USS Intrepid displaying a number of boundary layer control devices.

Vortilons can be seen projecting from underneath the center leading edge of the wings of this Hawker and it also has neat little winglets.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Adrian Pingstone.

Visit the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Stonehenge and you will pass another stone monument.  It’s the Airman’s Cross, placed by his comrades to commemorate the death of an early airman, Captain Eustace Broke Loraine and his Sergeant, who died when he crashed his Nieuport Monoplane near Stonehenge.

This pioneer aviator deserves to be recognised not just because of his own place in history but for his friendship with a very special officer who he encouraged to take up flying.

The Nieuport Monoplane

Stonehenge

Trenchard, the father of the Royal Air Force

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Garethwiscombe and William Orpen.

Fun in the Sun continues with part 2 of my first Air to Air Gunnery camp in Cyprus.  The work has started and now it’s time to become ACE (Allied Command Europe) qualified with the mighty M61 Vulcan cannon.

Before long, though it’s time to return to reality and, as my first year on the squadron comes to a close, time for my first annual assessment.

An unmounted M61 Vulcan 20mm cannon.

The shells that the Vulcan cannon fires.

As pleased as Punch!

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, Rhodekyll