General aviation/airplane news and chat

[A380]

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

Like the song says, you can always go around- unless you’re a glider pilot Obvs...

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Like the song says, you can always go around- unless you’re a glider pilot Obvs...

The shrugging emoji thing as all the people die on the Air France is a nice touch...

 

[A380]

The shrugging emoji thing as all the people die on the Air France is a nice touch...

Yes I wondered about that too... Message is still good though.

 

[gosub]

The shrugging emoji thing as all the people die on the Air France is a nice touch...

Was an airshow so no PAX, but yep they died. software glitch iirc

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

It was ‘only’ three who died, saying ‘all’ was ambiguous of me. But yeah...

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Was an airshow so no PAX, but yep they died. software glitch iirc

Lots of passengers, guests who won space in a raffle iirc

 

[gosub]

Lots of passengers, guests who won space in a raffle iirc

My mistake. Air France Flight 296 - Wikipedia 3 dead, all PAX

 

[T & P]

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

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.

 

[Sprocket.]

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

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.

 

[hash tag]

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

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

 

[planetgeli]

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.

 

[existentialist]

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.

That Hercules was doing circuits over the bay and the Gower back on, I think, Sunday, too.

Er, no. It was the C17

 

[T & P]

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

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

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.

 

[Sprocket.]

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.

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.

 

[spitfire]

Niche aviation news. Bit murky but something to do with IWM needing to minimise risk to the Museum as it is a trust or something.

Cue many enraged people (men) on Twatter with flags and Spitfires as their profile picture.

IWM Duxford and The Fighter Collection Announce Relocation of Flying Legends Air Show

IWM Duxford and The Fighter Collection Announce Relocation of Flying Legends Air Show

warbirdsnews.com

 

[spitfire]

Shame though, it was a good day out and you don't actually have to talk to the neckbeards you know?

 

[editor]

This is fascinating. I never knew the Lightning was that good!

The extraordinary story of the fastest English Electric Lightning in the RAF that managed to intercept the world's highest-flying spy plane, the U-2, and overtake the world's fastest airliner, the Concorde.

 

[A380]

 

[spitfire]

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.)

 

[existentialist]

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.)

Bet that made a bang when he hit it!

 

[Lancman]

A practice emergency landing on a highway apparently, the road signs should have been removed.

 

[spitfire]

A practice emergency landing on a highway apparently, the road signs should have been removed.

Right, a quick twitter search seemed to be in order and here he is actually hitting it!

 

[DownwardDog]

The panel gaps on that Flanker are like an Allegro.

 

[spitfire]

Freestyle fire fighting.

 

[A380]

Didn’t know where else to put this.

 

[DownwardDog]

I've got hundreds of patches but this is one of my favourites.

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

 

[LDC]

I've got hundreds of patches but this is one of my favourites.

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

Italian and ally in the same sentence?

 

[kebabking]

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.

 

[DownwardDog]

I really liked it and often volunteered, with zero success, for another stint at Club 14-35. I did my det in the Southern Hemisphere winter and the weather was fucking foul so we didn't get that much flying but what we did was fantastic.

 

[T & P]

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.




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.

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.