For the aviation fans

[Spokey]

Time on my hands! Not a huge amount to look at but may be of interest. This is on final approach into Camp Bastion in Helmand, Afghanistan. It was nearly always tricky. There was no approach available to us as the airfield just had a military frequency TACAN. Our old 8’s could not fly the RNAV/GPS type approaches either. All we could do was build an extend centre line out from the touch down zone and try and fly that as acuratelly as possible until the runway would become visible through the dust!

Beard went white flying there!!

The US had the left side and the Brits the right. There is a C17 visible through the dust at right.

[Lotus]

Looks peaceful,sounds dangerous.

 

Any incidents while you were there?

[Spokey]

Looks peaceful,sounds dangerous.

 

Any incidents while you were there?

We flew in twice a week from the UK. There was always busy helicopter traffic in and out. Usually when the Chinooks came steaming in it was because of casualties on board. We had instruction to turn immediately after take off at times. Never saw what was cause for the instruction. Likely to be a skirmish on the ground.

Iraq was interesting, had incomming motars once as we were leaving. Sounds more dramatic than it was .....for us anyway! We were getting out of dodge back to a nice hotel room in Bahrain.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Spokey

[patham]

I like this...........a lot! Those big old radials are awesome too.

 

Agreed. Interestingly enough, all the Fury and Sea Fury's there have had their original Bristol Centaurus engines replaced with American Pratt & Whitney or Wright radials. More spares and less reliability concerns. Must be Landrover engineering in the Bristols....

 

I used the shuttle bus from the city to get to the airport, and on the one trip was sitting next to a former mechanic for one of the teams. He was saying that the Merlin blocks are highly prized, as it's possible to get or make the normal spares, but when a piston gets thrown through the block it's a throwaway. There was a team that had a destroyed block and piston on display in their pits. He said that a bunch of the teams even clubbed together and hired a team of historians/archivists to go through all the RR and Packard manufacturing records, match with airframe records, and literally try and track down where all the engines could have landed up so they could try and acquire them.

 

That story may have been an exaggeration, but seeing the amount of money and passion I saw on display there it would not surprise me. 

[Spokey]

Agreed. Interestingly enough, all the Fury and Sea Fury's there have had their original Bristol Centaurus engines replaced with American Pratt & Whitney or Wright radials. More spares and less reliability concerns. Must be Landrover engineering in the Bristols....

 

I used the shuttle bus from the city to get to the airport, and on the one trip was sitting next to a former mechanic for one of the teams. He was saying that the Merlin blocks are highly prized, as it's possible to get or make the normal spares, but when a piston gets thrown through the block it's a throwaway. There was a team that had a destroyed block and piston on display in their pits. He said that a bunch of the teams even clubbed together and hired a team of historians/archivists to go through all the RR and Packard manufacturing records, match with airframe records, and literally try and track down where all the engines could have landed up so they could try and acquire them.

 

That story may have been an exaggeration, but seeing the amount of money and passion I saw on display there it would not surprise me.

 

I believe it. I get Aeroplane magazine each month and recently in one of those they had a ad for a bunch of new merlins that had been found. These ones had been built to power tanks in WW2 but are convertable to the aviation spec. I imagine quite a lot of dollars/pounds would be involved in either the purchase or the conversion.

[patham]

Heres some you won't get to see at Lanseria. DHC-3 Otters in turbine floatplane guise.  

[patham]

I believe it. I get Aeroplane magazine each month and recently in one of those they had a ad for a bunch of new merlins that had been found. These ones had been built to power tanks in WW2 but are convertable to the aviation spec. I imagine quite a lot of dollars/pounds would be involved in either the purchase or the conversion.

 

Its not a sport for the cash-strapped.I gather most of the Reno team mechanics do it for love (and hence only for a few years) but the amount of cash that needs to keep the team floating and fuelled is huge.

 

As they say; how do you get to be a millionaire in aviation ? Answer: start off with a billion.

[Beard]

 

 

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[RoddieJ]

A sad day indeed for the aviation industry...

 

https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/just-in-ethiopian-airlines-flight-to-nairobi-involved-in-fatal-crash-20190310

 

 

 

 

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[Bonus]

A sad day indeed for the aviation industry...

 

https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/just-in-ethiopian-airlines-flight-to-nairobi-involved-in-fatal-crash-20190310

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

Terrible news. Looks like the plane was only 4 months old too.

[Skylark]

Terrible news. Looks like the plane was only 4 months old too.

Eeish, I wonder if this is linked to the auto pilot issues.

[mazambaan]

Eeish, I wonder if this is linked to the auto pilot issues.

 

Eish indeed; same aircraft type, only 4 months old and 6 minutes after take off it seems?

[kosmonooit]

from FlightRader24 data

 

 

Edited March 10, 2019 by kosmonooit

[kosmonooit]

vertical speed was unstable from the get-go,...?

 

Not to sure why the charts end the way they do considering it must have fallen out the sky to smash up the way it did

Edited March 10, 2019 by kosmonooit

[kosmonooit]

The impact crater

 

http://avherald.com/img/ethiopian_b38m_et-avj_190310_1.jpg

[MrJacques]

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/faa-evaluates-a-potential-design-flaw-on-boeings-737-max-after-lion-air-crash/

 

China has grounded their 737 Max fleet as have some others. Looks like Boeing is going to be in a lot of trouble, this should have been taken much more seriously.