Thank you so much Hartmann for your elitist rhetorical response. It was so enlightening. As to your general public invasion reference, this is after all a public discussion forum which by definition means it's open to anyone including those with less than a working knowledge of the inner sanctum of commercial aviation. I assume from your arrogant tone that you consider yourself among the elitist few who are "LEGIT" aviators who actually knows what he is talking about, who "sticks around" to view or join in the discussion for the sake of its "entertainment value" or could it be that you're posing as such and belong instead to the uninformed, those of the general public who use the forum "for a toilet to babble...." or perhaps the adolescent behaving group who prefers to use the forum for playing sarcastic mind games with their comments as referred to by at least one poster herein who seems to serve as the forum's self appointed arbitrator. Adios amigo!

(Written on 02/01/2015)(Permalink)

I have one and I'm quite happy with it. What's your excuse?

(Written on 01/31/2015)(Permalink)

The nation will have much bigger problems to deal with than a missing "US Head of State" after a nuclear event. Presumably you have some knowledge of the Constitution's provision for a succession of power for the POTUS? The scenario of a missing airborne POTUS and the succession of power was depicted in the film "Air Force One" with Harrison Ford playing the part of the president and Glen Close the VP. The effects of a surface nuke detonation even if its a "decapitation strike" when compared to that of an EMP induced by a high altitude nuke detonation over the geographic center of the continental U.S. will likely be of less concern for the nation as a whole given the vulnerability of our aging electrical grid to a lengthy (possibly years) shutdown.

(Written on 01/31/2015)(Permalink)

It's obvious some of the posts in this forum are by people who are either incredibly ignorant or just plain stupid. What's with all this BS about "I can't believe he landed the plane by himself...." To quote from a certain cartoon character "Good grief!" or to put into today's common vernacular, BFD! It's standard procedure in today's commercial transport world for FO's to operate the airplane from takeoff to landing on alternating legs. They handle the comm already for most of the ground operations and in flight when they're not the flying pilot so big deal he had to use the radio in addition to the other usual duties. In the single piloted world, and yes with passengers, it's common practice. No doubt the Captain was in touch by intercom though his input would by necessity have been minimal with a "you got it, I'm taking a seat" retort. This may already have been the FO's leg anyway. So he landed, brought the bird to a complete stop using differential braking after aerodynami

(Written on 01/31/2015)(Permalink)

Unless it's changed radically from what I knew many years ago, with the exception of ACLS (automatic carrier landing system) which is (or was) the shipboard equivalent of ILS but with the ship's equipment able to lock on to the airplane and command its position relative to the glideslope plus an APC (Approach Power Compensator) or auto throttles in the airplane, thus a hands off approach to touchdown (used primarily for below minimums including zero-zero approaches), the instrumentation as such for a visual approach, which is assumed to have been the case for the approaches in the video, centers around the pilot's scan of Meatball, Lineup and AOA with the Meatball referring to the Fresnel Lens OLS. An AOA indexer light array is normally positioned in the upper left of the windscreen thus the pilot's scan is heads up and confined to a relatively narrow arc. Airspeed is normally only scanned for confirmation of the AOA indication. The LSO (traditionally referred to as "Paddles") is i

(Written on 01/17/2015)(Permalink)

The Navy initially rejected the F4U Corsair for carrier ops when it was initially introduced into the fleet because of the difficulty with maintaining lineup in the groove what with the F4U's long nose relative to the pilot's seated position so far aft blocking too much of the forward field of view. So the Navy gave the advanced Fighter exclusively to the Marines who immediately proceeded to station it on Guadalcanal at Henderson Field among which was the famous Black Sheep Squadron commanded by then Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington. At 31 years of age he was the old man in a squadron comprised mostly of young tigers in their early twenties so they nicknamed him "Pappy" and the name stuck. The rest is history with the Marines but the Navy eventually took the F4U back aboard ship when a Brit (Lend Lease to the British) figured out that if you flew the airplane in a slight right yawed steady heading sideslip when on final approach coming aboard ship kicking it out at the cut signal from th

(Written on 01/16/2015)(Permalink)

Will they ever stop calling these things "black boxes" when they are and have forevermore been painted "international orange" for their conspicuity even when appearing in photographs accompanying the report. It's likely that the FDR will show an upset and loss of control probably caused by convective activity in the area as reported previously. If the airplane then tumbled out of control while descending into the heart of the beast, a TSTM with accompanying severe turbulence, the airframe could have been subjected to structural overstress forces making recovery from the upset impossible.

(Written on 01/16/2015)(Permalink)

Okay, I get it. It was a fast flying machine with lots of git-up-and-go that required a full pressure suit be worn to operate it at it's normal mission altitude. Because of its speed capability, faster than a speeding bullet, a unique metallurgical and aerodynamic design was required which was far ahead of its time thanks to the genius of Clarence Kelly and the folks at the Lockheed skunk works and the research gained via the X-series test vehicles. It's mission was photo recon which it obviously accomplished with an unprecedented capability. Piloting it was doubtless a demanding task that I would guess relied heavily on a high fidelity stability augmentation system to include an auto-pilot to control it with precision when traveling at mach 3 plus. But time marches on and it's technology is unfortunately as old as that of the Apollo Moon Landing program or 40 years plus. Technology for the sake of space exploration seems to have stagnated with a dependence still on vertical rocke

(Written on 01/09/2015)(Permalink)

Seems like NASA hasn't progressed in the 50 year interim since the Mercury program with regard to launch and recovery procedures. Still riding a vertically launched rocket the expended pieces of which become space junk and then parachuting the space capsule into the ocean for pickup by ships during the recovery phase.

(Written on 12/26/2014)(Permalink)

The formation publicity airshow by the A350s has that beat by a long shot. Of course that was well planned, briefed and practiced with all concerned in the loop.

(Written on 12/26/2014)(Permalink)