Aircraft Discussion

[Wolf of Badenoch]

I've been fascinated with the Concorde since I was a child. The husband of my personal tutor, when I was young, was one of the engineers responsible for designing the droop nose of the Concorde. I would remember after my tutoring sessions, while waiting for my mum to come pick me up, he would show me all his Concorde stuff and tell me stories about it. The Concorde was so much more than just a plane, it was a point of national pride.

 

Watching tributes to the Concorde always brings me close to tears.

 

 

Was actually watching that a few days ago. Felt tears brimming in my eyes by the end of it. As you say, she truly was/is a point of national pride, in the same vein as the Spitfire, Hurricane, Lancaster and the Vulcan...

 

Really need to go see G-BOAA at East Fortune (near Edinburgh) at some point. This particular Concorde never flew again after the AF Flight 4590 tragedy, having never been fitted with the 'Return to Flight' modifications that were required after the accident.

 

This is her landing at Heathrow on 12th August 2000 as BA002 from JFK, her last ever flight:

Edited July 26, 2015 by Wolf of Badenoch

[FireX52]

Magnificient plane - Hughes H-4 Hercules...

[Straypuft]

new shot of mine from this past weekend:

STAT MedEvac EC-135 by R Seluryar, on Flickr

[~Tiger~]

I've been fascinated with the Concorde since I was a child.

 

I used to live and work near Heathrow Airport (Staines) and every fine morning I'd pop outside to watch Speedbird fly overhead. The roar of the engines was incredible.

 

Even more so as she passed over Reading. On a clear day, all you could see was a tiny triangle in the sky but the rumble of the massive sonic boom was intense.

 

 

I still live under a flight path but I now live in Yorkshire and most of the aircraft are boring A320s or Ryanair B737s.

 

Occasionally I take a trip to Cheshire and get treated to a glimpse of the mighty Emirates A380 leaving Manchester Airport....

 

Edited August 14, 2015 by ~Tiger~

[Ryan]

On occasion, I get the chance to work with the CH-149 Cormorant (Canadian designation of the EH-101) which is the primary search and rescue helicopter here in Canada. When you have one of these giants hovering 50 feet over your vessel, you feel it for sure.

 

 

 

 

 

[~Tiger~]

One of the most popular holiday destinations for commercial airliner thrill seekers is the Dutch half of the carabbean island of Sint Maarten.

 

One of the beaches is at the end of the airport runway and since the aircraft approach over the sea and therefore do not require a stepped series of flight levels, the craft pass exceedingly low over the spotters below. Plus, the runway is very short and so the aircraft touch down as close as possible to the perimeter.

 

 

 

Here is a (badly titled) video of KLM B747 approach

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3anOz84yz8

 

 

 

and here is a video showing the approach from the pilots POV, starting with Push Back at Amsterdam Airport to waypoint approach and landing at St Maarten:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Wolf of Badenoch]

Dunno why I haven't posted these until now, but here are my best images from The Scottish Airshow (5th September 2015).

 

XH558 (The Spirit of Great Britain)

 

 

 

 

 

The Red Arrows

 

 

 

Sally B (The only airworthy B-17 in Europe)

 

[epoxi]

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-1_LNaNC7F0c/VhH2uu2l6GI/AAAAAAAAKKU/cJfY7MjT8nU/w830-h553-no/IMG_7855.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-u7avilmpgKM/VhH3A9Mw5hI/AAAAAAAAKKc/GHpJSMyayrU/w830-h553-no/IMG_7989.JPG

These are pretty damn cool.

[Outcast]

Love the Vulcan. Remember seeing it at Duxford when I was a kid.

[~Tiger~]

Gale force winds have been causing problems in Yorkshire today. This Channex 757 really had a struggle making a safe approach into Leeds. The strong westerly wind meant treacherous cross winds.

 

 

 

[Annuit Coeptis]

 

 

 

 

 

I landed here once a couple of years back. The best damn approach I could ever ask for. Calm winds, direct VFR, visibility max and the view to top it all.

Edit: the ATC Controller was really nice too. (just remembered)

Edited December 27, 2015 by Annuit Coeptis

[Straypuft]

OMG! Breaking news!!

 

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-news/akron-canton-news/crazy-video-dash-cam-captures-low-flying-plane-near-akron-fulton-airport

 

#planesdoingnormalplanethings

 

Some background on this:

Akron Fulton Airport's(KAKR) runway is right on the other side of that fence the plane is flying over and somehow this is huge news

#slownewsday #banassaultplanes

[gtamann123]

I'm a huge fan off aircraft approach and landing videos.

 

This is one of my favorites because it includes the ATC chatter.

 

 

Edited May 27, 2016 by gtamann123

[antiguogrumete]

Love the A380, despite the time that has passed since this great plane began to fly, it's still impressive to see him land and take off ..

[YouTube]

[/YouTube] Edited June 10, 2016 by antiguogrumete

[uNi]

Four F-16 just flew by as I was crossing a bridge. From my angle they looked pretty close plus flying low.

 

Pretty sure I came a bit.

[Outcast]

It's amazing how modern the F-16 still look, even after having been in service since the 80s. My parents have a storage facility near the CCK AFB here in Taiwan, which used to be an USAF Air Base up until the late 70s. You'll see F-16s flying in and out along with Taiwan's homegrown fighter, the F-CK-1 (or as I call it, the f*ck-ONE). The civilian airport here is connected to the air base so as you taxi to the runway you'll pass by all sorts of military aircraft. Damn, fighter jets are just the coolest things to see up close.

[Sir Michael]

That F-CK-1's fuselage looks like an F-16 and an old school F-18 got mashed together. Looks pretty cool. The area I live in is predominantly military but I rarely see many military aircraft in the skies. I've only ever seen one F-15 so far, and boy those things are loud! Down south in Tacoma there's an Air Force base that I occasionally see C-17's taking off and landing at.

 

I've always been a fan of Russian fighter jet designs though, particularly from Sukhoi. To this day I still think the SU-37 Terminator looks amazing. I'm fairly convinced that in a 1v1 dogfight, this thing can win against an F-22. The canards, coupled with thrust vectoring, would give it unparalleled maneuverability against any standard fighter jet, with only the experimental SU-47 Berkut potentially beating it out with its rather radical design. I'm slightly mixed about the T-50 though.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Sir Michael

[sivispacem]

Obscure Cold War jets are awesome. My favourite Russian one has always been the MiG 1.44

[Sir Michael]

I remember reading about that jet years ago, amazing what they design over there. That MiG looks very maneuverable also, one would get the impression that Russia prioritizes agility in their designs. Even the naval variant of the Flanker, the 33, has canards attached to the fuselage. They do increase radar cross section though, that's the only downside to it really.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Sir Michael

[sivispacem]

You can design canards with minimal RCS, the Eurofighter being an example. The 1.44 was always designed to be a MiG-29 workhorse replacement anyway. And the recent Chinese stuff is supposed to have a pretty low footprint.

[Sir Michael]

Does it have something to do with their angular designs? I've noticed a lot of modern fighter jets, 5th-generation especially, embracing these designs, although some of them look undeniably inspired by the F-22. Even modernized versions of older jets such as the F-18 have employed such designs:

 

[sivispacem]

Yes- squared corners and angular "slab sides" reduce radar cross section over curves.

It also makes implementation of most Radar Absorbing Materials much easier as these tend to be in the form of squared tiles.

[Sir Michael]

For some reason I always thought the material was like a coating or something of that nature. This kind of stealth tech has always been foreign to me, I never dove too much into the subject. Thanks for that Siv, that was really helpful.

[DarkSavageDeathlyCloud]

 

 

dont know a lot of aircraft, but wow....so this one still held his speed records ?

 

that is honestly really impressive

 

though, personal favorit aircraft is this...and you can blame mgs1 partially for that

 

 

i saw the one in the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History here in our capital city a year ago...jeezes...that thing is huge

Edited August 27, 2016 by Darth Absentis

[Straypuft]

Had my first helicopter ride this weekend.

 

3 minute flight on a Robinson R44 for $20

Robinson R44 Raven II by R, on Flickr

[visionist]

I'm planning a few new tattoos, including a PDF on my arm with some pretty extreme numbers on the speed and altitude tapes (777 knots at 77777 feet) and the caption "Coffin Corner".

 

Do my numbers make sense? Is that airspeed at that altitude too low for flight?

 

Would a pilot be offended by this tattoo?

[sivispacem]

There are very few production aircraft with a 70,000+ft absolute ceiling, and fewer still with a service ceiling that high. Most of those are at significantly over 770kt IAS, which is about Mach 1.4 taking into account altitude; those which are below it tend to be significantly so. There are a few experimental aircraft that have attained similar performance figures at comparable levels- SNCASO Trident, for instance.

[visionist]

There's definitely an element of fantasy to such a tattoo yes, especially as I want to depict the horizon inverted too. Ideally it'd represent a large SST like the stillborn Boeing 2707 with its wings not-quite fully swept for maximum lift in such thin air at that speed.

 

I'd hate for a pilot to see it and laugh Would crush me lol

[kokot]

I think it's silly, and your numbers are way out to lunch but like you said, it's fantasy especially given the 2707 never made it off the drawing board and even if it had, it wouldn't suffer from coffin's corner given that it was designed to be a supersonic aircraft.

 

Coffin's corner is when the aircraft is sitting at it's maximum altitude given the current weight and atmospheric conditions. The low speed buffet, usually displayed on modern aircraft by an amber tape is at or near the high speed Mcrit of critical Mach number, (shown at the top of the speedtape in red) which is by definition the speed at which a part of the aircraft achieves supersonic flight. Quite often the top of the wing since the air travels faster over the top of the wing which is how it normally provides lift. At higher speeds, the centre of lift moves aft, dropping the nose of the aircraft and putting you in the situation known as Mach tuck.

 

Coffin's corner can be brought on while flying over top of a storm cell, which creates turbulence and the airspeed starts dancing between the low and high speed buffet. Not a pleasant situation.

 

Normal airliners will achieve this situation (I'd say) between FL370 - 410 with an indicated (CAS) of 250 - 280 knots and somerwhere around Mach .8 so if you wanted it to be realistic, pick numbers around that.

 

But hey, it's your skin, do what you like. I'm just bored down route in my hotel room as usual.

 

[MindCorrupt]