Just out of curiosity - Airplane Guys

I guess my question was about balancing risk and overreaction. If the plane coughs on takeoff do you set it down wheels up and destroy it but survive, or do you continue, and risk that it will quit totally a hundred feet in the air over the city 30 seconds from now. Could-a, should-a. I'm getting these plane videos in my feed where people talk about this kind of stuff. Besides "fly it through the crash" another maxim is "planes are expendable and insured"
 
I guess my question was about balancing risk and overreaction. If the plane coughs on takeoff do you set it down wheels up and destroy it but survive, or do you continue, and risk that it will quit totally a hundred feet in the air over the city 30 seconds from now. Could-a, should-a. I'm getting these plane videos in my feed where people talk about this kind of stuff. Besides "fly it through the crash" another maxim is "planes are expendable and insured"
Each situation is different... there is no one size fits all answer. Before every flight you evaluate your situation. Weight, fuel load, runway... obstructions... wind direction and such. Then you formulate an action for every foreseeable situation. If you have others on board, you brief them (at leas I do) on your plan of action. Suitably armed, your reactions are pre-planned and set in mind. That way there's no second guessing your actions real time. You already know how you're gonna react, it's just a matter of following through.
 
- - - Besides "fly it through the crash" another maxim is "planes are expendable and insured"

Hi xj,
not every 'plane.
Back in the 1950s a group of BAC apprentices rebuilt a Bristol Bulldog, a 1930s fighter that my dad worked
on back in the day and famous for being the aircraft that crushed Douglas Bader's legs when he crashed it. (Amongst the World's first steel-framed aircraft, kinda heavy, lost 20 feet of altitude when flick-rolled, unlike the Gloster Gamecock Dougie was used to.)
The only airworthy Bulldog still in existence. Our chief test pilot survived crashing it at the Paris Air Show.
Funny thing, if he'd crashed a new aircraft the boys would have said "No problem, we'll build you another one."
But he'd crashed the Bulldog. The boys spat on the floor where he'd walked.
 
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Small single engined planes don't normally use V1. If I'm in a small Cessna taking off on a 10,000 ft runway and I have a failure at liftoff, I'll likely have about 9,000 ft of the runway still ahead of me... plenty of room to settle and come to a stop.

Yep. Friend of mine was asked why he always went to the far end of the massive runways when he was flying a tiddler. He pointed out that if he got into the habit of joining the runway halfway along and could easily take off with loads of room to spare, there will be one time he wished he hadn't.
 
Here's something fascinating. First, some amazing acrobatics, like a ballet in the clouds and at the end his prop comes off and he makes a perfect landing and even rolls to a perfect place.

Then, the same guy playing a rube on his first airplane ride and in the act the plane takes off without the pilot and does random slow floating stuff close to the ground almost like a helicopter


 
I wonder if he ever found the right fishing hole?
540038_10151448467525428_1602764094_n.jpg
 
Most likely did. Bomb bay doors are open for a reason. Trust me. They are cavernous. Huge bay. I've seen them.
 
Hi Boog,
most likely a practice or re-enactment photo of a bouncing bomb drop.
It wouldn't be an accurate re-enactment then. The bombs (and powered trapeze) were too wide to fit the bomb bay. They were carried externally.

dam_busters_bomb_composites.jpg
 
It wouldn't be an accurate re-enactment then. The bombs (and powered trapeze) were too wide to fit the bomb bay. They were carried externally.
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Hi Jim,
agreed but normal Lancs would be aerodynamically near enough the same as the bouncing bomb units for crew training while maintaining operational security.
It's been 40 years since I read "The Dam Busters" and I betcha some of the details weren't right; and the Movie even less so.
 
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Heard the news this morning about Chuck. To be honest, I didn't know he was still alive but 97 is a good age! As a kid, used to read boys' annuals from the 1950s, and would be enthralled by articles such as breaking the sound barrier, complete with photographs like the one above. The future seemed like an exciting place back then.
 
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Heard the news this morning about Chuck. To be honest, I didn't know he was still alive but 97 is a good age! As a kid, used to read boys' annuals from the 1950s, and would be enthralled by articles such as breaking the sound barrier, complete with photographs like the one above. The future seemed like an exciting place back then.

It sure was - anything seemed possible and the predictions of some the future technologies (flying cars etc.) were actually kind of funny - if you did the math on them - while others were actually pretty close to today's reality (like for example the Apple wrist iphone as compared to Dick Tracy's wrist phone).
 
The Battle of Palmdale, California. Two jets fire 208 rockets point blank at a Grumman Hellcat without a pilot and can't hit it. But hit everything else...
 
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