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General aviation/airplane news and chat

MrCurry said:
An A380 (not our dear own A380) making a very late decision to abort landing at LHR this afternoon, thanks to Storm Francis

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During the previous tropical storm to hit the UK, last year I’m sure and one of the strongest in years, there were several aviation enthusiast YouTube channels doing live streaming from just outside the LHR perimeter.

Fascinating to watch as the go-around rate seemed to be a good 25% plus and those planes that managed to land had to battle phenomenal crosswinds, but the bloke doing the live commentary was a right twat. Clearly a wannabe pilot who thought he knew better than the professional pilots trying to land in hurricane conditions, and felt qualified to give advice or criticise their final approach moves. All with a cheeky cockney language to boot.
 
hash tag said:
Is there anyone here who keeps tabs on these things. Does anyone have any idea when an Antanov will be returning to the UK as Mrs Tag is desperate to see one.
I saw one at Farnborough many years ago and see one recently landed at Prestwick (taking arms to Israel) and appreciate that ony a few airports have runways big enough for them.
I understand East Midlands airport is another that is big enough. Any clues or hints anyone, where to find these things out? Thanks.

View attachment 225530
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We get the large and smaller versions weekly at Doncaster.
Our nip just rang to say he had just had one fly over him in Bawtry. He is wrong it’s a RAF C17-Globemaster on a training flight.
 
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Pretty sure I just witnessed a load of military stuff in the sky. Saw at least four fast flying 'things', quite separately over 2 minutes but all in the same-ish part of the sky to the south and south west of my house. Heading east. Then came in to check flightradar because it was getting silly and picked up a Lockheed C-130J Super Hercules doing rounds of Carmarthen Bay at very low altitude, which then disappeared from the screen before reappearing again a minute later showing it heading back to wherever it came from, Brize Norton direction. It's still on there, low altitude, reg ZH879 showing Ascot181 as its number.

Never seen that many aircraft nighttime flying before, they must all be connected.

Edit - Just landed at Brize Norton. Where it had a C-17A Globemaster for company for a while.
 
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planetgeli said:
Pretty sure I just witnessed a load of military stuff in the sky. Saw at least four fast flying 'things', quite separately over 2 minutes but all in the same-ish part of the sky to the south and south west of my house. Heading east. Then came in to check flightradar because it was getting silly and picked up a Lockheed C-130J Super Hercules doing rounds of Carmarthen Bay at very low altitude, which then disappeared from the screen before reappearing again a minute later showing it heading back to wherever it came from, Brize Norton direction. It's still on there, low altitude, reg ZH879 showing Ascot181 as its number.

Never seen that many aircraft nighttime flying before, they must all be connected.

Edit - Just landed at Brize Norton. Where it had a C-17A Globemaster for company for a while.
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That Hercules was doing circuits over the bay and the Gower back on, I think, Sunday, too.

Er, no. It was the C17
 
hash tag said:
I see Gatwick has already closed a terminal and shed 200 jobs already with another 600 to go
BBC News - Gatwick Airport plans to cut 600 jobs due to coronavirus
www.bbc.co.uk

Gatwick Airport plans to cut 600 jobs due to coronavirus

The job losses follow an 80% drop in passenger numbers due to coronavirus, the airport says.
www.bbc.co.uk
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I’m quietly hoping the ‘express quarantine’ trials they’re currently doing at one of the Heathrow terminals will be successful, as it would allow cutting down the quarantine period to just two or three days provided you’re not infected. I think a lot more people would be prepared to fly to quarantine-hit countries if all you’ve facing back home is 3-odd days of isolation.
 
planetgeli said:
Pretty sure I just witnessed a load of military stuff in the sky. Saw at least four fast flying 'things', quite separately over 2 minutes but all in the same-ish part of the sky to the south and south west of my house. Heading east. Then came in to check flightradar because it was getting silly and picked up a Lockheed C-130J Super Hercules doing rounds of Carmarthen Bay at very low altitude, which then disappeared from the screen before reappearing again a minute later showing it heading back to wherever it came from, Brize Norton direction. It's still on there, low altitude, reg ZH879 showing Ascot181 as its number.

Never seen that many aircraft nighttime flying before, they must all be connected.

Edit - Just landed at Brize Norton. Where it had a C-17A Globemaster for company for a while.
Click to expand...

The C-17A Globemaster was according to Flightradar24 the one doing loops at Doncaster airport. Coming to within 100feet of the runway then doing another twenty mile loop around. Eight loops in total before returning to Brize Norton. I suppose it beats watching Homes under the Hammer and Bargain Hunt on a Wednesday.
 
So that's what that was all about! I saw the video on Twitter but the comments were all in Russian so couldn't work out what had happened. (The second pic wasn't there obvs.)
 
I've got hundreds of patches but this is one of my favourites.

1363506694338-692803016.jpeg


I also wore this Italian one for a while in defiance of regulations because I thought it looked ally. Sadly lost now

1382288062152-184398057.jpeg
 
I really enjoyed working with the RAF in the Falklands - the low level flying (particularly) was far more aggressive than was possible in the UK, and it was far easier to get support for training and operations - the latter was due to the whole set-up being much smaller, and much less siloed and much more purple than in the UK.
 
I was just reading an article on the biggest innovation flops in cinema, which included an early and pioneering in-flight entertainment system for American Airlines called Astrocolor. Instead of having one giant screen with a projector at the back, this projected the film on a series of screens installed every few rows.

Astrocolor.jpg


That was all very well, but in the analog 1960s there was only one way to achieve this:

[...] this was before the advent of the MP4, the DVD, the magnetic videotape and the laserdisc, and airlines needed to use 16mm celluloid prints to exhibit films on board.

So the film was bizarrely threaded along the length of the cabin next to the overhead luggage compartments. Each screen had its own projector that back-projected the film onto the screen in color and in the film’s original aspect ratio. At any given time, nearly 300 feet of film ran through the complex system of gears and loops.

This meant that passengers in the back of the plane saw a scene nearly five minutes after the passengers in the front. And with so many moving parts and a filmstrip that could reach 9,000 feet in length, the failure rate was 20 percent.

Astrocolor had effectively turned the airplane into a giant film projector, and maintenance of the complex in-flight entertainment system could hinder an airline’s flight schedules.
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I'd imagine the extra weight of such a contraption would also add up nicely to the annual fuel bill of every plane carrying it... Great example of engineering creativity, though ultimately at a 20% failure rate, not a viable one.
 
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