Wow. When I saw two of them sitting in the thing I thought: Not much is going to happen here ... Energy management --- the whole thing is flown close to the stall. Like the guy in my video. The only reason he doesn't do a loop is that he's constantly too close to the ground. I love the colour of this Cub. I bet both these guys do airframe checks much way more frequently than required by regulations. Have you ever seen the prototype of the Boeing 707 being rolled?
Another gorgeous video IMO --- approach in a bit of a gusty crosswind to the booming metropolis of Salluit, up at the top of Quebec. Such an austere, wintry beauty. The notes say this was shot last November. Up there in November, this is how it is on a cloudless day. This is doubtless Air Inuit, an airline collectively owned by the Inuit (or Eskimos, as I still call them). There are a few aboriginal outfits in northern Canada: Air Creebec, First Air (also an Eskimo outfit) and Air North over in the Yukon, owned by the Gwich'in people who live in those parts. There may be others. Because imagine not having air service in a place like this ...
You sound like a pilot (sorry if that seems condescending, I always dreamed of getting a private pilot's license). Did (do) you fly for AC/CP? (Don't answer if it requires killing me.)
Good book, I read it in my early teens. Got to see this baby in the air a few years back at Hamilton too
Yes, I had a pilot's licence for almost 20 years, then "lost my medical" as they say. Then realized that in any case I really couldn't afford it any more. It would have been my dream to be an airline pilot, but these days I've come to realize that I probably wouldn't have had the temperament, not to mention the dogged determination that it usually requires. "You sound like a raving aerogeek" would have been fine too, since one doesn't need to have any formal qualification for that. And an aviation freak is what I've been since I was a small boy. Go figure.
Don't tell me you come from Hamilton ... Do they have one now at the museum there? Didn't the last time I checked. That's really not an airplane you want to have any serious landing or take-off mishaps with since it contains a lot of stuff like balsa wood (the composite fibre of the day) to keep it strong but light. And light is what it did very easily ---- it all burned quite nicely indeed.
Toronto, but Hamilton has always had an actual airshow compared to the one at the CNE. My dad was an ATC for nearly 30 years, so being an aviation fan was inevitable for me. I don't think they have a mossie there. This one is apparently based in Virginia Beach and was the only airworthy survivor of the type for a little while. There're three now, one of which is in Abbotsford, BC.
Have you been to the aero/space museum in Ottawa in the last decade? They really did an amazing job redesigning the place. Best thing is, the admission will also get you into the Sci/Tech museum (Train gallery :woo
My brother took his kids there last year, but I haven't been in decades ... four at least. When I was last there they had the nose section of an Avro Arrow lying on a tarp in the back of a hangar.
the display gallery is amazing... a nice, winding walk through the eras of flight, accented with antique motorbikes.
Not as starkly beautiful as the Arctic Circle, but here's some pointless footage I shot out the window flying from Newark NJ to Raleigh NC and back: The trip down was an ERJ-145, the trip home was, IIRC, a Dash-8. We had some nice clouds on the way home. When the spoilers pop up on landing at Raleigh, I think you can hear my wife say "Is it supposed to do that?"
I always liked the CNE airshow, but I know what you mean. The de Havilland Vampire on static display in Hamilton was purchased from the Swiss air force after it had finally been retired. (They auctioned the Vampires off, with museums and airplane nuts from all over the world.) I believe the Swiss flew the things for over 40 years, and were the last to retire them. They ended their days in service as the primary jet trainer. I well remember them and knew a few people at the flying club who had Vampire time in theirlogbooks. The only time I saw it in Hamilton, it was still in Swiss colours.
Yes, that looks like a Dash-8 to me. Right, well when you listen to the talk around you in an airliner, you realize that quite a few people are nervous about flying. Which is absolutely understandable ---- it's not an activity we're evolved for. Here's a snap from my very first ride in an Embraer jet, a 190.
They had at least two vamps on the ground last time we went to the Hamilton show. It's amazing just how small those things are.
Yes, especially the rudder. How are things that dinky supposed to exert any "authority"? Do you know the French equivalent, the Fouga Magister? It sits so low on the ground that a tall person can simply step aboard. When the French air force and navy retired them, they were also auctioned. Quite a few flying clubs now own airworthy Magisters. Not sure what qualifications you'd need to fly one. But it's going to be advanced. These are airplanes you can get into a lot of trouble with really fast. It has two early, none-too-powerful engines, so once again: energy management is where it's at. I'll post a mediocre-quality video of one performing ... because it was at an airshow hosted by the flying club I used to belong to.
Speaking of the Embraer 190, here's one almost taking the fence down at St Maarten airport. (Unless I'm the unwitting victim of image-trickery here...) I do believe that fence has been knocked down more than once.
Dunno. The landings/take-offs at STT always gave me the willies when I went down on a booze run. At least before they extended the runway. AA refused to fly in there but EA needed the biz. AA625 On the other hand taking Antilles Airboats from Charlotte Amalie was a blast. Water sloshing under the floorboards of the old Grummans that flew only a few hundred feet above the waves.
The only year I went to CNE was the one the Snowbirds had a fatality (89). I haven't been to any airshows since.
yeah, they've had about one per decade as I remember, and I've seen two. First one was when a Firefly went into the drink in '77, and the other was the Nimrod in (i think it was) '95. I think we got through the 00s without one...
I hear ya. I love the speed, I love the noise, but I'm never at ease. I saw one of the Blue Angels get killed when his wingtip caught the breakwater at the end of the Island Airport runway in 1966. (It was a very calm day with the lake absolutely flat, so very hard to judge your height.) Also once saw a skydiver go in. That was truly awful. Finally --- and some people refuse to believe I was there, but I was --- as a backpacker in Europe in 1973 I just happened to be in Paris when the fabled Paris Airshow was on. I was overjoyed and went. And then watched the Concordski (the Tu-144) crash onto a nearby village after breaking up in mid-air. One of those things where you can't quite believe you're seeing what you're seeing. These days I'll go to an airshow if there's something novel to see. Otherwise I feel jaded.
For some reason I missed seeing post 51, @steve2^4 There certainly are some tricky airports in the Caribbean. I'm sure the worst is the airport on St Barthélemy, or St Barth as it's usually abbreviated, in the French West Indies. The runway is far too short for the airspeed you need to maintain to get safely down that hill, so naturally you're going to float to bleed off that speed, especially with the heat blasting up from that asphalt. By the time you get your wheels on the ground, at best you don't have a whole lot of runway left. At worst, you shoot off the end. Reversible-pitch props are a definite advantage there. Another interesting runway in the region is the one in Tegucigalpa.
Guy calling himself flugsnug is the Ruling Geek at Birmingham (UK) airport. He obviously spends days on end there and has posted some masterful videos on youtube over the years. Here's one he put up just a couple of weeks ago. Here's to flugsnug for freezing his geekish bum off for hours in crappy weather for our entertainment.
British Airways crew films interception by German air force. I wonder what the story ended up being there.
Dad story: He spent his first days in the Pacific on scramble alert on Hawaii. Every once in a while a transport from the States would approach without its IFF on. Dad would go up, fly his P-47 up next to the cockpit and tap his headphones at the pilot. Then he'd fall back along the length of the transport, get behind it, and wait for instructions. The pilots always realized their mistake quickly. But what he said he remembered most was in every window, lots of very wide eyes staring at those eight .50 calibers.
Yes, I'm sure it isn't fun to be intercepted. To the crew it may mean they're in big trouble, unless there's a technical fault I can't imagine what with all the redundancy these days. If you're a passenger, you're thinking WTF? Here's a video by a passenger in an Airbus from the Spanish airline Vueling that's being intercepted by the French air force. Notice fighter pilot snapping photos, as in: here's proof. And one that actually returned to Zurich, from where it had taken off. So some sort of technical failure there.
