General aviation/airplane news and chat

[DownwardDog]

These little Gnats could really move!

It had amazing performance but they couldn't put any stores on it for weapons training so it was very limited. It did comprehensively outperform the aircraft that replaced it (the Hawk). See also Sabre/Hunter.

 

[Teaboy]

Not at all.

Just look at the bailouts Lufthansa & Air France have had this year, and the many airlines that are still state owned. Flying is a vital public service, really don't know where you get the idea that it should be privately funded from.

I didn't say it should be privately funded or the industry doesn't spend their entire life with the begging bowl out. I merely mentioned that the industry does like to pretend its self supporting. I can't imagine where I got this idea from?

 

[A380]

That's one method. Most common right now is steam reformation of methane.

Whilst the hydrogen product is the same.

Blue Hydrogen- extracted from natural gas, so if you aren't capturing and storing the C02 not a huge point...
Green Hydrogen - made by electrolysis of water - so only really green if your are using surplus renewable electricity (or maybe nukes)

Massive over simplification.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I didn't say it should be privately funded or the industry doesn't spend their entire life with the begging bowl out. I merely mentioned that the industry does like to pretend its self supporting. I can't imagine where I got this idea from?

Plucked it out of your arse, would be my guess.

 

[spitfire]

Didn't know the Flying Fire Engine's have pathfinders.



He enjoyed it!

 

[pogofish]

It had amazing performance but they couldn't put any stores on it for weapons training so it was very limited. It did comprehensively outperform the aircraft that replaced it (the Hawk). See also Sabre/Hunter.

A few years back I saw a preserved Gnat fly with the Red Arrows at an air show. Despite its age/limitations, it held-up very well with them for most of the display.

Also been watching Hawks today, as part of multinational exercise and probably to help-out with the landing fees, the “bad guys” have been stationed at the airport here all week, so there are planes going out and back all day.

 

[T & P]

It was the final BA 747 farewell this morning, with the last two remaining birds departing from LHR for the last time. They were meant to have taken off simultaneously from the two parallel runways, but British weather...

Sorry for linking to the Daily Heil, but credit where it's due, they have about the most comprehensive write up of the outlets I've seen online today- an excellent article in fact, worth a look.

Two British Airways Boeing 747s take off from Heathrow for last time

The last British Airways jumbo jets have left London Heathrow Airport, with two 747-400 aircraft taking off simultaneously from both runways before heading to scrapyards.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[spitfire]

I have found the motherlode of flying fire engines.

11 best firefighting aircraft

The world is burning. Infernos rage across the globe, with many nations in the grip of fires of biblical proportions. Facing these firestorms is a motley force of aircraft, crewed by heroic and exc…

hushkit.net

As Hush-Kit’s Ted Ward noted:

“Whilst looking for fire-bomber stuff I have come to the conclusion that the US’s approach to fire control was insane. Essentially they just left the madly dangerous world of aerial firefighting to a bunch of cowboys who flew any old thing and gave the contract to the lowest bidder with inevitably fatal results. Have you checked out the death rate of firefighting pilots in the US? Anyway it all went tits up when that Hercules crashed in 2002, followed within two months by a Privateer operated by the same outfit. Incidentally, the Privateer’s wings apparently failed downwards due to metal fatigue causing the main spar to fail when the water was dropped.This led to possibly the only folk song I’m aware of about a civil plane crash, (below).

Massive maintenance oversights meant fixed-wing firefighting was stopped for a while until proper standards were put in place and that’s when most of the WWII stuff got sidelined, which is sort-of-good because otherwise those wankers would have crashed them all, but sort of bad because it was kind of exciting. Nonetheless 38(!) aircrew were killed between 2003 and 2012 (which is after standards were tightened), or 5% of active crews. Anyway, the upside of that is historically they converted anything they could get their hands on and there were some pretty ‘unconventional’ choices. I maintain that the sexiest of all the air tankers was the Tigercat. Pretty dangerous though – three crashed in 1973 alone, for example. ”

 

[teuchter]

It was the final BA 747 farewell this morning, with the last two remaining birds departing from LHR for the last time. They were meant to have taken off simultaneously from the two parallel runways, but British weather...

Sorry for linking to the Daily Heil, but credit where it's due, they have about the most comprehensive write up of the outlets I've seen online today- an excellent article in fact, worth a look.

Two British Airways Boeing 747s take off from Heathrow for last time

The last British Airways jumbo jets have left London Heathrow Airport, with two 747-400 aircraft taking off simultaneously from both runways before heading to scrapyards.

www.dailymail.co.uk

When would the 747s have been retired, had it not been for Covid?

 

[T & P]

When would the 747s have been retired, had it not been for Covid?

Yes, though Covid apparently brought the retirement forward of the last handful of them by a few months. 747s are very inefficient by today’s standards.

 

[teuchter]

Yes, though Covid apparently brought the retirement forward of the last handful of them by a few months. 747s are very inefficient by today’s standards.

Despite whatever I say about air travel - I'm sad to see them go too, and it's a shame it has to be in these circumstances. Truly world-changing machines.

 

[2hats]

Yes, though Covid apparently brought the retirement forward of the last handful of them by a few months. 747s are very inefficient by today’s standards.

Twin engines for the self loading freight, but 747 freighter models will be around for a bit yet.

 

[teuchter]

 

[T & P]

Thank fuck for that. Tegel and Schonefeld were truly fucking horrendous airports to find yourself in. Good to see the infamously late Brandenburg Airport open for business at last

 

[Teaboy]

Tegal was a grim airport but it was really well located for Central Berlin.

 

[T & P]

I can’t remember which one of the two airports it was, but the terminal from which EasyJet flights departed back to London on our last trip to Berlin was a crime against Humanity.

 

[A380]

I didn’t know this was how it was done.

 

[pogofish]

Thank fuck for that. Tegel and Schonefeld were truly fucking horrendous airports to find yourself in. Good to see the infamously late Brandenburg Airport open for business at last

Tegel was one of my favourite airports - not least because of its proximity to central Berlin but also because it’s layout was so quick and easy to get in and out of. Although the waiting areas at the gates could be a bit hellish on a busy flight, esp if delayed but they were brilliant in the days before the wall came down and I understand connecting/transiting through the later cheap shed of a second terminal (which did not abide by the original masterplan) was a less than pleasant experience.

Plus it also has this:

The monument to Otto Lilienthal, crashing - sat right between the coffee and currywurst stall and the BVG bus stance.

And I take it you are aware that Berlin Brandenburg and Tegel were both designed by the same architect - but Tegel worked, at least within the parameters of the era it was designed for.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

And the new airport is really just a heavily revamped Schonefeld airport...

 

[kebabking]

I didn’t know this was how it was done.

It's not - the bloke you see is the Coy Cdr, he's talking to the JTAC/FST (who is probably within a few hundred yards of the Coy Cdr) and the JTAC/FST will then talk to the aircraft using the standard format for bringing in CAS.

(JTAC/FST nerd).

 

[pogofish]

And the new airport is really just a heavily revamped Schonefeld airport...

It wasn’t even the first choice — which was this place:

Forgotten airfields europe

Directory of abandoned, forgotten and little known airfiels in europe

forgottenairfields.com

But some fairly murky politics and pressure from vested interests with an eye on opening up significant development/redevelopment sites around Schonefeld swung the decision away from it.

 

[A380]

It's not - the bloke you see is the Coy Cdr, he's talking to the JTAC/FST (who is probably within a few hundred yards of the Coy Cdr) and the JTAC/FST will then talk to the aircraft using the standard format for bringing in CAS.

(JTAC/FST nerd).

Crush my dreams why don't you,

 

[A380]

 

[spitfire]

Oh my.

 

[Lancman]

Are you sure that that isn't a supersonic shock wave ?

 

[Spymaster]

Are you sure that that isn't a supersonic shock wave ?

Not in 1929, Lanc.

 

[T & P]

Early chemtrail. They were well dodgy in those days as they often used cancerogenic chemicals. Thank fuck they eventually cleaned their act.

 

[kebabking]

Not in 1929, Lanc.

Might have been out of RAF Luton...

 

[A380]

Oh my.

That's properly awesome!

 

[spitfire]

Dubai 'jetman' Vincent Reffet dies in training accident

Frenchman was part of team from Jetman Dubai famous for doing stunts wearing jetpacks

www.theguardian.com