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Just out of curiosity - Airplane Guys
- Thread starter Downeaster
- Start date
Weren't near as dramatic. I (too) left the throttle a little high. The ramp it was on sloped uphill slightly so I figured it would stay put. Had the "oh sh*t" moment as soon as the motor caught. Ran around back and up to the cockpit and chopped the throttle. It moved maybe 10-15 ft before I caught it. Was a brash (read that...stupid) twenty something at the time. I'm older and wiser now.
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Here is a good YouTube video on another excellent product of the Scottish Borders - Captain (N) Eric M. "Winkle" Brown.....
Check this chap out - he flew more different types of aircraft (487 I think) than any other person in history. His test pilot career spanned the early war years right through to the McDonnell F4 Phantom, English Electric Lightning and other advanced jets. In particular, he was sent to Germany at the end of the War to test German aircraft and select specimens to be brought back to the UK for further study.
He wrote several excellent books including "Wings of the Luftwaffe" about these exploits in which he describes - in detail - the start-up and test flights in aircraft ranging from the Junkers Ju87 "Stuka" right through to the Me262 swept-wing jet and the hair-raising Me163 rocket fighter along with the diminutive Heinkel He162 "Volksjager". He also wrote "Duels in the Sky" in which he assesses the outcomes of combats that never actually occurred (such as for example, a Grumman F6F Hellcat versus a Focke-Wulf FW190 and many others). He could do this because he had flown ALL of those aircraft many many times.
Eric Brown's favourite propeller aircraft was the DeHavilland Hornet which was powered by two late-Merlins and was somewhat similar to, but quite a bit smaller and lighter, than the more famous Mosquito. The following YouTube video is riddled with errors and hype - but it does tell the tale of the Hornet and has some nice photos and videos of the aircraft.
For any who are interested, you can often find used - but nice - copies of Capt. (N) Brown's books on the used book site: AbeBooks on which used book stores all over the world post their inventories (https://www.abebooks.com/). Just go to the site and enter: "Capt. Eric Brown" in the author field and see what comes up. I got my mint-condition copy of "Wings of the Luftwaffe" for under $10 CDN (around $0.43 cents USD at the present rate of exchange). I have bought most of my collection through AbeBooks that way and never regretted a purchase (although I will regret them when I have to box them up to move them soon).
Cheers,
Pete
Check this chap out - he flew more different types of aircraft (487 I think) than any other person in history. His test pilot career spanned the early war years right through to the McDonnell F4 Phantom, English Electric Lightning and other advanced jets. In particular, he was sent to Germany at the end of the War to test German aircraft and select specimens to be brought back to the UK for further study.
He wrote several excellent books including "Wings of the Luftwaffe" about these exploits in which he describes - in detail - the start-up and test flights in aircraft ranging from the Junkers Ju87 "Stuka" right through to the Me262 swept-wing jet and the hair-raising Me163 rocket fighter along with the diminutive Heinkel He162 "Volksjager". He also wrote "Duels in the Sky" in which he assesses the outcomes of combats that never actually occurred (such as for example, a Grumman F6F Hellcat versus a Focke-Wulf FW190 and many others). He could do this because he had flown ALL of those aircraft many many times.
Eric Brown's favourite propeller aircraft was the DeHavilland Hornet which was powered by two late-Merlins and was somewhat similar to, but quite a bit smaller and lighter, than the more famous Mosquito. The following YouTube video is riddled with errors and hype - but it does tell the tale of the Hornet and has some nice photos and videos of the aircraft.
For any who are interested, you can often find used - but nice - copies of Capt. (N) Brown's books on the used book site: AbeBooks on which used book stores all over the world post their inventories (https://www.abebooks.com/). Just go to the site and enter: "Capt. Eric Brown" in the author field and see what comes up. I got my mint-condition copy of "Wings of the Luftwaffe" for under $10 CDN (around $0.43 cents USD at the present rate of exchange). I have bought most of my collection through AbeBooks that way and never regretted a purchase (although I will regret them when I have to box them up to move them soon).
Cheers,
Pete
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OK - here is another cool video - and please forgive me that it isn't an airplane. This chap explains how and why big ships get stuck in small canals.
Gotta love those engineers....
...and anyone who mutters the word "nerd" is going to get 40 lashes with a wet noodle from me!
Gotta love those engineers....
...and anyone who mutters the word "nerd" is going to get 40 lashes with a wet noodle from me!
...and yet another sexy Brit....
Justa FYI.
Latest prediction for the Chinese CZ-5B rocket body reentry is 09 MAY 2021 03:02 UTC ± 2 hours along the ground track shown here.
Follow it here:
"The Aerospace Corporation (@AerospaceCorp) / Twitter" https://mobile.twitter.com/AerospaceCorp
Live tracking:
Latest prediction for the Chinese CZ-5B rocket body reentry is 09 MAY 2021 03:02 UTC ± 2 hours along the ground track shown here.
Follow it here:
"The Aerospace Corporation (@AerospaceCorp) / Twitter" https://mobile.twitter.com/AerospaceCorp
Live tracking:
I wish the bloody thing would land on them - kidnapping b@stards.
FREE THE TWO MICHAELS!!
Oooops - no politics....sorry, my bad.
Pete
FREE THE TWO MICHAELS!!
Oooops - no politics....sorry, my bad.
Pete
Only plane in the Air Force that gets birdstrikes from the rear....Today on the VFT site.May have been posted before but if so it certainly deserves a repost.
View attachment 190970
Hi fellow Fly-Boys!
I am an avid book collector and over the years I have assembled quite a collection of aviation and naval history books. One of my favourites is the In Action series by Squadron/Signal publishers which is based in Texas (although I just checked and it looks like Squardon/Signal has gone out of business after 53 years).
Since the late 1960's they have published hundreds of books including mmore than 200 softcover In Action series paperbacks each of which is devoted to a single type of aircraft - including history, colour schemes and excellent line drawings which I have used for my RC models.
Each book in the In Action series is numbered starting with 1001 and going to over 1220 at this point in time (although I don't think that any new titles have been added in several years). One of the problems with this series is that there is no complete listing of the titles anywhere that I could find and since they have been publishing the series for more than 50 years (the earliest book came out in the early 1970s) - even the Squadron/Signal company itself didn't have a list of all the titles (I wrote and checked back about 15 years ago).
Soooo, I made my own list and am attaching it to this post for anyone else who collects these books.
Now, how do you find these books and other old, out of print titles? Well, the best source is likely your local hobby shop and for any volumes that you cannot find, I recommend a website called: AbeBooks.com - on which used bookstores all over the world have posted their stock lists. All you do is go on the AbeBooks.com site and enter "Squadron/Signal In Action" into the title field and it up will come a listing of all the books available and ordering info to get them.
I have basically built my entire collection using AbeBooks.com and seldom had to pay more than $5-10 for any volume in the series and they are thin enough (around 20-30 pages I think) that shipping isn't expensive. I just checked this morning and there quite a few volumes on the site right now for about $10.
Anyhow - check out the list and search for a book on your favourite aircraft.
Cheers,
Pete
I am an avid book collector and over the years I have assembled quite a collection of aviation and naval history books. One of my favourites is the In Action series by Squadron/Signal publishers which is based in Texas (although I just checked and it looks like Squardon/Signal has gone out of business after 53 years).
Since the late 1960's they have published hundreds of books including mmore than 200 softcover In Action series paperbacks each of which is devoted to a single type of aircraft - including history, colour schemes and excellent line drawings which I have used for my RC models.
Each book in the In Action series is numbered starting with 1001 and going to over 1220 at this point in time (although I don't think that any new titles have been added in several years). One of the problems with this series is that there is no complete listing of the titles anywhere that I could find and since they have been publishing the series for more than 50 years (the earliest book came out in the early 1970s) - even the Squadron/Signal company itself didn't have a list of all the titles (I wrote and checked back about 15 years ago).
Soooo, I made my own list and am attaching it to this post for anyone else who collects these books.
Now, how do you find these books and other old, out of print titles? Well, the best source is likely your local hobby shop and for any volumes that you cannot find, I recommend a website called: AbeBooks.com - on which used bookstores all over the world have posted their stock lists. All you do is go on the AbeBooks.com site and enter "Squadron/Signal In Action" into the title field and it up will come a listing of all the books available and ordering info to get them.
I have basically built my entire collection using AbeBooks.com and seldom had to pay more than $5-10 for any volume in the series and they are thin enough (around 20-30 pages I think) that shipping isn't expensive. I just checked this morning and there quite a few volumes on the site right now for about $10.
Anyhow - check out the list and search for a book on your favourite aircraft.
Cheers,
Pete
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The VC-10 was still around when I was a kid.
"Try a little VC-tenderness" was the slogan on the BOAC travel posters.
Quite surprised BOAC themselves didn't want it and only 54 were made.
For most of my life, the VC-10 was the RAF's long-distance people hauler. If service personnel had a posting to a distant base, they were sent VC-10. Seem to remember somebody telling me he'd travelled on one of those RAF planes and the seats were all rear-facing - supposed to improve survival in the event of a crash. RAF also used VC-10 tankers. Long career and in service till a few years ago.
Hi Pete,
yeah, I was there, As an apprentice I helped dump water into turbo-prop engines to discover why they flamed out over Entebbe Uganda.
Delayed the Proteus Engine certification by two effin' years while we found the fix.
My own thought that we should just make money flying Britannias transatlantic like El-Al and not bother going to Entebbe Uganda was not shared by Bristol-Siddeley's management.
.My other thought, that the British aircraft industry's main sales office should be relocated to California to better serve BOAC's purchasing staff, was also disregarded.
Ahhh, the A-10. A fine weapon system. Noted for turning Tanks into Swiss Cheese. The last jet I worked on before retiring. Still seen in the air around Tucson AZ.Today on the VFT site.
View attachment 190970
My Dad and I went out to the "new" Toronto airport at Malton (in the....late 1960's I'd guess), to watch the aircraft come and go. We packed a picnic lunch and stayed there for hours on-end. My Dad was a highschool teacher and money was tight - so this was a cheap way for he and I to have some fun and together time. I remember those days with great fondness.
In those pre-9/11 days, you could go up on the top level of the airport parking garage (for no charge) just to watch operations. Back then, there was a much wider array of aircraft types and "looks" ranging from four-engined DC8s and 707s to tail-engined twins and triples and lots of props (Air Canada Viscounts and Vanguards) and even the odd piston type - usually smaller Convairs. We also got some East Bloc aircraft into Toronto - and these were also interesting, but they always seemed sort of...grubby, by comparison with most of the western types.
But the queen of them all - by a mile - was the VC10. I remember thinking, and my Dad remarking - as we watched the BOAC VC10 land and taxi-in, that it was simply one of the most beautiful man-made things we had ever seen. The elegance of the airplane design and the BOAC colour-scheme were simply the classiest.
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Further on the matter of BOAC (and I certainly acknowledge the anti-British purchasing policies of that outfit)....
Speedbird 78 to Frankfurt....
Some years ago in the mid-1960s, there was a period in which the air traffic controllers in Frankfurt Germany went through a "nationalistic" period in which they wanted incoming crews to speak German over the radio when speaking with the Tower and they were quite curt with pilots who wouldn't or couldn't do this. During that time, the following exchange was heard between a BOAC pilot (callsign "Speedbird 78") and Frankfurt Tower (callsign "FRA"):
Speedbird 78: This is Speedbird 78 requesting direction to my gate
FRA: Speedbird 78, your gate is 13D - please speak German
Speedbird 78: Sorry - this is Speedbird 78 requesting direction to Gate 13D
FRA: Speedbird 78 - make your request, you are in Germany now - make your request in German
Speedbird 78: Sorry sir - my request is for direction to Gate 13D
FRA: German - say it in German - haven't you been here before?
Speedbird 78: Well, yes, actually, I have been here several times before, but I came only to drop something off and wasn't able to stay long.
Speedbird 78 to Frankfurt....
Some years ago in the mid-1960s, there was a period in which the air traffic controllers in Frankfurt Germany went through a "nationalistic" period in which they wanted incoming crews to speak German over the radio when speaking with the Tower and they were quite curt with pilots who wouldn't or couldn't do this. During that time, the following exchange was heard between a BOAC pilot (callsign "Speedbird 78") and Frankfurt Tower (callsign "FRA"):
Speedbird 78: This is Speedbird 78 requesting direction to my gate
FRA: Speedbird 78, your gate is 13D - please speak German
Speedbird 78: Sorry - this is Speedbird 78 requesting direction to Gate 13D
FRA: Speedbird 78 - make your request, you are in Germany now - make your request in German
Speedbird 78: Sorry sir - my request is for direction to Gate 13D
FRA: German - say it in German - haven't you been here before?
Speedbird 78: Well, yes, actually, I have been here several times before, but I came only to drop something off and wasn't able to stay long.
That was maddening for me as a AMT traveling with the airplane. It was my job to put the airplane to bed. That often meant taxiing it to a remote parking spot. Most places in South America the Ground Control is all in Spanish. They speak English to me, but I can't otherwise tell what's going on because all of the other traffic is in Spanish. (Yes, ATC is all in English.)
...at least, that is the idea - everywhere at all times.
