@ttyymmnn

OK, but that's not a problem if you want to "fly" your F-104 at the Bonneville salt flats.

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@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: February 1 - February 3:

At Defcon 2 or higher, meaning that nuclear war was the next step, or that an attack was imminent, the Looking Glass pilots were required to wear an eye patch over one eye. If a nuclear explosion took place near enough to blind them with the flash, then they still had one good eye to fly the plane.

Many years ago, an older lady told me about her husband having been present for the first and last underwater nuclear tests as regular crew on a Navy ship. For the first test, everybody was ordered to go up on deck and stand facing the detonation. For the last, everybody was ordered to go up on deck and stand facing away from the detonation. That was the only difference for him.

@ttyymmnn Your sentence sounds good, and the linked article is a great write up as well.

@ranwhenparked What you don't think they can convince the FAA that it's still a 737?

@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: January 21 - January 24 [New Destinations]:

The unarmed Turbinlite aircraft illuminated enemy bombers so they could be attacked by other aircraft.

Well, that was the goal anyway. My (mis)understanding is that there were several attrition losses during the tricky co-ordination of the Havoc and the night fighters, but actual shootdowns consisted of one Heinkel 111 and one friendly fire incident at the expense of a homeward-bound Shorts Stirling (fortunately the latter made a good landing, supposedly followed by a frank and open exchange of views between its crew and their tormentors).

The experiment was pursued enthusiastically but briefly, retired in favor of better radars that could be carried by a night fighter.

@ttyymmnn Eastern Airlines is another one of those zombie trademarks that's been shuffled around and revived a few times, not as badly as Pan Am, but, still.

There was a new Eastern Airlines that operated as a division of Swift Air from 2015-2017 as a charter airline, using the same logo and livery as the original, then another Eastern Airlines in operation from 2018-present as a rebranding of the former Dynamic Airways International, in which Swift Air was the controlling shareholder. They're a small, scheduled low cost carrier primarily serving a few Caribbean destinations, and also added cargo services in 2021 under the Eastern Air Cargo name, and use a totally new livery and logo.

@BicycleBuck said in This Date in Aviation History: January 14 - January 17 [New Destinations]:

They failed to realize that anything emitting a signal became an easily identified target.

I bet they figured that out real quick.

@CB I mean that's mostly right. There were some helicopters zipping around at the end of WWII, but they were slow, short ranged, couldn't carry much, and were fragile even from a helicopter perspective. By the Korean War, you had some helicopters that were more useful, but it wasn't really until the age of jet turbine powered helicopters in the 60s that they became practical for a broad range of roles. The definitive helicopter, the UH-1 (Iroquois officially, and Huey to the populace) first flew in 1956, but wasn't operational until 1959.

@ranwhenparked
Very true.

@BaconSandwich Well you have torpedoes obviously. I suspect in the air, travelling at supersonic speeds generates enough noise that hearing nearby targets becomes impossible. And of course you certainly can't do any sort of active sonar (echolocation) at supersonic speeds since you'd fly past your pings before they even reached the taarget.

@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: December 31 - January 3 [New Destinations]:

the first jet-powered presidential aircraft, with tail number SAM (Special Air Mission) 26000 and SAM 27000.

SAM970 (pictured!) would disagree with that statement.

SAM970/971/972 were not officially reserved exclusively for presidential travel like later Air Force Ones, but they were purchased and outfitted with the intention that would be Ike's and later presidents' travel, and served in that role.

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Ike took advantage of his new jets with a trip to West Germany, the UK, and France in late August/early September 1959, followed by an 11 nation trip through Europe, Asia and North Africa in December. He flew to South America, Europe, and East Asia the following year.

Backed by the power of jets, he visited roughly three times as many countries in his last two years as he did in his first six, and at much greater distances (his only previous destinations outside of North America as President were Switzerland and France, though he had also visited South Korea as President-Elect).

@Ad-absurdum-per-aspera also, they had a several decades long package deal, where if you sailed one way on Queen Elizabeth 2 at full price, you could return on Concorde at half price, I guess the Soviets could have done the same thing by twinning the Tu-144 with Aleksandr Pushkin, but I'm not sure there would have been enough takers

@ttyymmnn When I first heard of the Pitot tube I thought it must have something to do with pilots and urine on long flights...

@john-norris

Here you go.

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@ttyymmnn it wasn't a catapult, there was no propulsive assistance other than some from gravity, as it was somewhat downhill (as downhill as they could get on a fairly flat area). It was a wooden cradle mounted to a dolly that rode along a wooden rail. The Brazilian claim is because the Wright Flyer required some fixed infrastructure on the ground to do it's take off roll, but that's kind of an arbitrary definition of an aircraft, if you ask me.

At one point, the Germans were really sensitive about pointing out that Count von Zeppelin achieved controlled, powered flight in 1900, but hydrogen assistance means that doesn't count

@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: December 17, 1903:

They believed that the problems of aerodynamic wings and sufficiently powerful engines were surmountable, and they focused on developing a system of control that would govern movement of the airplane in three axes of flight: roll, pitch and yaw.

And they had a wind tunnel to test different airfoil shapes and the effects and control of the three axes. Here is a replica.

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https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/198082/wright-brothers-1901-wind-tunnel/

At the time there were other wanna be aviators trying to get there first. Not sure how many others took as serious an engineering approach as did the Wrights. I believe they flew first because they were the first to use an aeronautical engineering approach.

Great post. As always.

@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: December 14 - December 16 [New Destinations]:

Boeing cut production to just five Dreamliners per month in 2021,

curious to know what production was like in 2022

@ttyymmnn That was a great read! I actually saw an RAF A400M a week ago. Well, i heard it but England had to be covered in thick clouds. I checked on flight radar and it flew right over my school and was only 4000ft above the ground. Very cool but very disappointed!

@ttyymmnn Yes, double mamba driving counter-rotating props through a single - presumably absurdly complicated - gearbox. Crazy design. Apparently it was in aid of being able to improve loitering time by shutting down one turbine and feathering one prop, without suffering the control asymmetry of a conventional twin setup.

@ttyymmnn 1eacb15d-1b43-4c80-a6a3-1c2af70baf3d-image.png
The 3 white plumes left of center are from a Japanese min-sub bouncing up and down after firing a torpedo.

@Ad-absurdum-per-aspera I think Boeing is still keeping a low profile on ceremonies, post 737 Max. The rollout of the first 777X, effectively the 747's replacement, was also pretty low key

@ttyymmnn Thank you. I went the extra mile to take this one myself ...

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@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: November 30 - December 2 [New Destinations]:

have you ever seen the film No Highway in the Sky? Also known by its US title No Highway,

I might have seen it a long time ago. It does sound a bit like the Comet problem.

Another reason for bombing at 5000 feet was that it allowed better cooling for the fire prone B29 engines. At that point, they were commonly losing planes to engine fires. In fact the joke was that Curtiss Wright killed more bomber pilots than the Japanese......

Here is a good writeup of the engine problems. https://www.historynet.com/superbombers-achilles-heel/

@nowhere

Interesting! I didn't know about the copy cats.

@ttyymmnn XP980 was restored to her unpainted test markings before being remanded to the Fleet Air Arm museum, which I like:

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24/02/1963 - first flight at Dunsfold 16/11/1963 - made a heavy landing 25/11/1963 - flew again following repairs 11/02/1965 - to Bircham Newton 10/03/1965 - to Dunsfold via RAF West Raynham 14/07/1965 - grounded 30/12/1965 - next recorded flight 27/01/1966 - last flight from Dunsfold To A&AEE for trials, damaged during practice forced landing, used for spares recovery 1970 - moved to Tarrant Rushton 03/1970 - used by Flight Refuelling as ground experimental vehicle/barrier trials 03/1971 - wing returned to Boscombe Down, replaced with wing from Harrier GR1 XV751 1972 - to RAE Bedford for pilotless crash barrier trials 09/1973 - to 71MU at RAF Bicester for conversion to display exhibit (not carried out) * ?/?/? - to RAF Gaydon for grounds handling training 06/11/1974 - to Bitteswell 08/1975 - to RAE Bedford for Sea Harrier restraining hook trials 08/1977 - to Tarrant Rushton for Drone braking tests as part of the Sea Vixen D3 programme 09/10/1980 - to School of Aircraft Handling at RNAS Culdrose for dummy deck training and allocated A2700 with engine E4754 1981 - repainted to look like a Sea Harrier 09/03/1989 - moved to FAAM to be part of VSTOL Exhibition 13/11/1999 - moved to the Cobham Hall store On display in FAA Museum in Hall 4/Leading Edge Exhibition

@pip-bip said in This Date in Aviation History: November 16 - November 18 [New Destinations]:

@ttyymmnn Qantas has had some near misses though with jet airliners.

They have. Perhaps they are leading a charmed existence.

@ttyymmnn Fun fact: Albuquerque's general aviation airport is named Double Eagle. The Abruzzo family has long been based in Albuquerque, and were of course instrumental in the history of ballooning and the ABQ International Balloon Festival.

@ttyymmnn

It would probably be hard to find a car long enough for that inline 24 cylinder anyway.

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@trivet

It always tripped me out how the early carrier jets landed with their canopy open. Of course, were were not at all far removed from WWII, when canopies were left open to make it easier to get out in case of an accident or water landing. These were still the days before reliable of zero-zero ejection seats.

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@glemon

The Staggerwing is just dead sexy.

@ttyymmnn I can't imagine the coal mine is going to last much longer without significant reimagining (it was closed for some sort of renovation when I was there a year ago). It's is certainly too "rah rah coal!" given what we now know about climate change, and probably not very representative of how a modern coal mine works either. The museum does seem to have a lot of space that isn't actually open to public and while that may be closed collections and offices, it suggests they do have room to modernize exhibits as they need to.

The Obama Library is going up a few blocks south, so when that opens, it will probably help draw additional tourists down to MSI as well.

@ttyymmnn -- The 777x is going to win in the medium to long term simply by virtue of being alone in that space with A380 production over. In the short term, though... yeah, that job is a lot easier for a keyboard CEO like me than the real thing. Lots of fine calculations in a low margin business that has a number of externalities beyond your control and it still comes down to a gamble.

One of the factors is probably customer expectations of frequency in various areas.

The most surprising thing I saw last night was an A340, which I'd thought was pretty much gone from passenger service. Edelweiss was employing it for those who want to see the Seychelles by the SEZshore. They bought a fifth one from Swiss just this year. So there's a whole airline I'd never thought of, which (in a complicated relationship with Swiss, under the corporate umbrella of Lufthansa) seems to mostly take holiday-makers to places that have substantially nicer winters than Central Europe.

The point, I guess, is that you can make money with unlikely things if you know your market and find the right market niche (and, I guess, lose money with seemingly safe choices if you blow either of those things...)

@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: October 19 - October 21 [New Destinations]:

... and only 21 examples of the Mercator were built

Quite a departure from today. The loser may get to build 2.

@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: October 15 - October 18:

And potentially deadly

Yes, I remember the story. It was all over the news here in Atlanta, as the destination. One of the passengers described the event and that one of the flight attendants came running aft assuring everyone, its okay, its okay, and the passengers replying no, no it's not.

If I recall correctly the two fatalities were 2 of 3 in that row from the same family. The surviving family member had to witness / participate in the tragic event.

@wpgmiata

Thank you!

@facw

I think that's a fair assessment, and worthy of revisiting. Thanks.

@facw

Man, I haven't had a Staropramen in ages. I love Czech pilsner.

@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: October 1 - October 4:

upgraded and more capable version of the original B-1A

save for that field so beloved of teenagers and people who like drawing circles on Google Earth maps, top speed

@Krieger22 said in This Date in Aviation History: September 24 - September 27 [Updated]:

They're catching up

Gen. Mike Minihan, commander of Air Mobility Command, approved the KC-46A Pegasus for worldwide deployments to meet combatant

Then again, he probably had to. They desperately need those planes to be in the air.

Yeah, that paragraph probably needs a refresh.

@ttyymmnn -- Indeed, it seems to have more in common with Convair's contemporary fighters than with anything the US had tried to use as a strategic bomber. Tricky to fly, too. I recall reading somewhere that its pilots went through fighter lead-in training to accustom themselves to supersonic work, high approach and landing speeds, and a "hot" airplane in general.

There were two other crew and they were busy. Shoveling fuel back and forth to achieve the desired center of gravity, which was quite a bit different for subsonic and supersonic flight, was among the chores whose automation was not entirely reliably automated.

It used a lot of fuel, too, and even with an unusually good ratio of dry weight to maximum takeoff weight, it could only carry so much of the stuff. By this time SAC had a growing KC-135 fleet, but even so, B-58's staging to forward bases would have been a sign to have a bug-out plan and keep your fingers crossed about favorable mutations.

@ttyymmnn

Ah, how much for a couple of these?

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@ttyymmnn I have to add a picture of Art with his usual copilot:

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@ttyymmnn Ah that's amazing!

I enjoyed reading the upgrades between the C and the G.

Also if you have 20 minutes to kill, that AMC museum website has virtual tours of some of the aircraft, but sadly not the Boxcar.

@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: September 7 - September 9:

Since then, more than 44,000 have been built

I still think the production numbers on this airplane are higher.

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@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: September 3 - September 6 [Updated]:

Was there any interest in changing the [Brabazon] design to accommodate row upon row of seats?

Apparently not. Would there even have been that much demand for what would have been essentially a jumbo jet in that era?

It's an interesting what-if. I'd guess that demand might have become sufficient to fill that many seats as transatlantic aviation came of age in the slightly postwar era. However, I further speculate that such a plane was ahead of the engine technology of the day (see also Convair's dreams of a passenger version of the XC-99, or the military airlifter version for that matter, which was based on the general idea of the B-36).

The right number of engines and right size of airframe that would bring pressurized comfort (though not dining rooms) to that market turned out to be the DC-6 and the Connie, and Bristol's turboprop Britannia.

@Darkbrador

The Cold War and today. An army travels on its stomach…

@oldmxer

Thanks!

@ttyymmnn

I have made an intercontinental flight in a Vickers Viscount. Oil was leaking out of one engine and onto the wing.

@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: August 20 - August 23 [Updated]:

The first VC-25 took its maiden flight on May 16, 1987, but the first completed aircraft wasn’t delivered until 1990

I believe 1987 was supposed to have been the in-service date, as well, but they found a lot of electrical problems in flight tests, and, in Boeing fashion, the fixes took 3 years to complete

@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: August 17 - August 19 [Updated]:

@Rusty-Vandura said in This Date in Aviation History: August 17 - August 19 [Updated]:

@ttyymmnn I loved reading that again just now.

I read it again too. I've been to that show at Fort Worth Alliance. It's a great show, and I think I may have seen a P-3 there. I think our years living in Norfolk have given me an affinity for Naval aviation.

Naval aviation isn't a bunch of dandies.

@CB

A certifiable classic. The fact that it was specifically designed to load a 55-gal barrel is just the icing on the cake. Talk about knowing your audience.

@e90m3

Fun with nodebb scheduled posts.

@MattHurting said in This Date in Aviation History: August 10 - August 12 [Updated]:

@Rusty-Vandura I mean, basic LEGO building taught us not to do that...

Yeah. Well said.

@ttyymmnn

I don't know the exact quote, but I understand that Truman once said that he didn't care who got credit as long as things got done. Letting Nimitz get credit in Japan and Marshall in Europe went a long way to quickly rebuilding economies while keeping egos from getting in the way. That concept seemed to finally hit a wall with MacArthur.

@Skyfire77 noooo ....

@ttyymmnn said in This Date in Aviation History: July 30 - August 2:

astronauts David Scott and James Irwin covered a total distance of 17.25 miles in the Rover.

And they are still getting calls asking them to buy an extended warranty on the vehicle.