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The Pilot Who Saved That Southwest Flight Is A Badass

4/17/2018

Tammie Jo Shults, reportedly one of the pilots responsible for landing the Southwest Airlines flight 1380 that experienced an engine explosion earlier today, was also one of the first women pilots in the Navy and one of the first women to fly the F/A 18 fighter jet.
Earlier today, flight 1380 was headed from New York to Dallas when its engine exploded. One person was reported dead following the incident, and one person was reportedly partially pulled through a broken window, one person suffered a heart attack, and others were hit with shrapnel.
According to social media posts from some of the 143 passengers on the flight, Tammi Jo Shults was the pilot who managed to navigate the flight for an emergency landing. She reportedly greeted passengers as they exited the plane after the landing.

Shults was one of the first women fighter pilots in U.S. Navy history, as well as being one of the first to pilot the F/A 18 jet, as reported by Heavy.com. Shults is from New Mexico, and joined the Navy in 1985, where she also flew the LTV A-7 Corsair as part of VAQ-34, an electronic aggressor squadron, according to All Hands, a Navy magazine. “In AOCS [Aviation Officer Candidate School], if you’re a woman [or different in any way], you’re a high profile; you’re under more scrutiny,” Shults said. Chances for women to gain as much knowledge about the aviation community are limited.
“It would be nice if they would take away the ceilings [women] have over our heads,” Shults said. “In VAQ-34, gender doesn’t matter, there’s no advantage or disadvantage,” she said. “Which proves my point - if there’s a good mix of gender, it ceases to be an issue.”
Here’s more on Shults via Heavy.com:
She wasn’t allowed to fly in combat while she was in the Navy, according to a 2006 article that is no longer online but can be accessed in a forum about fighter pilots here. But did become an “aggressor pilot.” She resigned her commission in 1993 and joined Southwest Airlines.
In the video below, you can hear Shults’ radio communications following the engine explosion, where she manages to calmly explain that part of the aircraft is missing and that passengers are injured as she lines up with the runway.

ELECTRIC AIRPLANE RACE IS LAUNCHED

4/4/2018

Air racing is set to be revolutionized with plans for the world’s first all-electric airplane race announced this week.
Leading companies in electric aviation manufacturing are being invited to tender to become a founding technical partner of the new motorsport series, Air Race E.
The series will be run by Air Race Events and led by world-leading air racing promoter Jeff Zaltman, who has also founded the globally successful Air Race 1 World Cup, alongside an international team of leading authorities in the sport.
Air Race E will see electric airplanes racing directly against each other on a very tight circuit just above the ground and at speeds faster than any land-based motorsport. Formula Air Race planes, classified as “Experimental”, are the only planes in the world designed specifically for racing and built to a specific race formula.
The demand for speed, performance and power management under the rigors of a competitive race environment provide the perfect platform for the development and promotion of cleaner, faster and more technologically advanced electric engines.
Electric aviation is one of the fastest developing technological areas and is seen as the third generation of aviation by the like of Rolls Royce, Airbus and Siemens who are leading the way in the technical development of commercial electric planes in this fast-paced Research and Development intensive industry.
Jeff Zaltman, CEO of Air Race Events, commented; “We are thrilled to announce the world’s first and only all-electric airplane racing championship.
“Air Race E has secured all the key components to make this vision a reality: the airplanes, the race pilots, the engineers, the sports associations, a test center in Europe and the racing heritage and expertise that is unrivalled in the world.
“We are now just looking for the best powerplant and electrical systems for the job. Air Race E will become the unifying body that will drive the development and promotion of cleaner and faster electric aircraft.
Air Race E is to be sanctioned by the official Formula Air Racing Association (FARA) and Association des Pilotes D’Avions de Formules (APAF), the two formula air racing governing bodies, upon launch of the series.
Air Race E will be a similar format to the sport known as ‘formula one pylon air racing’ where the world’s best race pilots compete simultaneously to be the first one to cross the finish line. Eight airplanes race directly against each other at speeds of over 400kph around a tight circuit just 1.5km end-to-end.
Des Hart, President of FARA, said; “Formula Air Racing has a rich history as the fastest and most innovative international motorsport and Air Race E will allow us to continue that story and give us the global platform to take air racing into the next generation and beyond.
“It is crucial that we have a structure like Air Race E in place to provide the leading edge to development while propelling the sport and inspiring audiences. The electric revolution is poised to change aviation and Air Race E will play an important role in the advancement of technology.”
Dominique Milcendeau, President of APAF, said; “There is no doubt that air racing has been significant in aircraft and engine designs and in technological developments. The Schneider Trophy, the Reno Air Races, the Gordon Bennet Trophy and the Cleveland Races ring in the mind of pilots but also engineers worldwide.
“The future of electric aviation is now; and Air Race E will enable the link between the world’s greatest technicians and air racing teams in a global competition offering an opportunity to showcase and test the technological advances of the electrical propulsion domain.”
Air Race E is planning to launch its inaugural series of international races in 2020.

CRAZY SU-27 PILOT NEARLY LOSES IT ON TAKEOFF

4/4/2018

We figured that if anyone of you has a Sukhoi aircraft somewhere in your backyard, you probably shouldn't do what the pilot in this video did. You know, just in case you do.We're not pilots but have been doing this for a bunch of years now (this makes us the Chair Force, right?), but it looks like he almost stalled right when he took off. Just look at the footage. The Su-27 took off in the distance and it took it a little while to come into the frame. There are actually a couple of people standing there on the field. Keep an eye out for the guy farthest to the left.
The fighter took off and made a sharp left bank and judging by the way the right wing dipped and the angle of attack increased, this guy was about to lose all his energy and hit the ground. Tell us if we're wrong. Seriously, our expertise is limited but that's what it looked like.
Then there's that poor dude in the video. Since the plane sort of wobbled for a second there, it must have been hard to gauge exactly where this plane would go down if it actually did. He goes right for a bit, then changes his mind and books it left before finally hitting the ground when it was directly over him.
Can't imagine what was going through his head.

tags: su27 pilot , crazy russian pilot , breed of speed , nathan finneman , sirdrifto , aviation , jet , crash

Cold War fun: Pilot reveals Soviet bomber crews asked US jets to barrel-roll & took pics

1/31/2018

An aviation blog has posted a photo of a US AF F-4 jet flying upside down as it intercepts a Soviet Tu-95 strategic bomber. The story behind it is one of how mid-air encounters now deemed “unsafe” were once regarded as professionals having a bit of fun.The picture was published by the popular military aviation blog The Aviationist on December 4 as an illustration of how the definition of recklessness has changed since the Cold War. Maneuvers like barrel rolls or aggressive turns during interception missions are now usually branded by the Pentagon as “unprofessional” or “unsafe” if performed by Russian or Chinese pilots responding to American aircraft.

But a few decades ago such stunts were quite routine and not perceived as anything dangerous. Military aviation blogger David Cenciotti cited a US spy plane veteran pilot calling such episodes “ho-hum.” He added that American pilots actually behaved in the same manner, as evidenced by the photo with the ‘Phantom’ flying upside down alongside the ‘Bear.’
The image went viral, and its owner Robert M. Sihler contacted the blog and revealed he took it during his deployment to Iceland in the 1970s, a period of reduced tension known as detente.
“Generally, we did these barrel rolls at the request of the Soviet crew members. They photographed us as well. The Cold War was winding down and the attitudes on both sides had improved,” Sihler said.
When asked whether he considered the barrel roll a difficult or an unsafe maneuver, Sihler replied frankly: “Not really! The Soviets, at the time, gave us hand signals asking us to ‘perform’ for them. The rolls were not dangerous at all.”
The mood surrounding Russia and the US has recently been quite different, with both sides complaining about the other’s conduct over Syria. This week the Russian Defense Ministry accused the US of trying to interfere with Russian bombing missions and thus defending terrorists. The accusation came in response to controversial remarks from a US Air Force spokesman, who claimed that “unsafe behavior” by Russian pilots may prompt the Americans to shoot the Russian warplanes down.

tags: breed of speed , nathan finneman , cold war barrell roll, f4 phantom , russian intercept

That Time the Luftwaffe Experimented with a Rocket-Launched F-104G Starfighter

1/18/2018

Almost every aviation enthusiast has probably seen the famous test videos of a North American F-100 Super Saber being launched from a portable trailer using a large rocket booster.
The origin of “Zero Length Launch”, often called “ZeLL”, was the perceived necessity that aircraft would need to be boosted into flight after available airfields and runways in Europe were destroyed in a nuclear attack. Using motor vehicle highways as improvised runways, often practiced by NATO and former Warsaw Pact air forces, may not have worked as well since the aircraft would be more vulnerable to air attack. With the Zero Length Launch concept, aircraft could actually be boosted into flight using a disposable rocket booster from inside a hardened aircraft shelter, presuming no one else like hapless ground crew were inside the shelter at the time of launch.
“ZeLL” was an interesting, if ultimately impractical, concept. It could be argued that the “ZeLL” concept somehow validated the need for V/STOL (Vertical/Short Take Off and Landing) aircraft such as the Harrier and, decades later, even the F-35B Lightning II.
What many aviation history buffs don’t know is that the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, experimented with a Zero Launch System on their F-104 Starfighters. The concept made more sense with the F-104 Starfighter, an aircraft conceived almost purely as an interceptor.
Rocketing the F-104 into flight as a sort of “manned missile”, the interceptor would rapidly climb to altitude and engage an approaching bomber formation says Nathan Finneman. The Starfighter was a suitable candidate for ZeLL launch operations since it began setting altitude records as early as May, 1958, when USAF test pilot Major Howard C. “Scrappy” Johnson zoom-climbed to an astonishing altitude Record of 27,811m (91,243 feet, or 17.2 miles high) from a conventional take-off.
Interestingly, Germany had tested a rocket-powered, vertical launch interceptor during WWII called the “Bachem Ba-349 Natter”. The aircraft would be fired from a launch tower, fly to the allied bomber formations using rocket boosters and engage them with unguided high velocity aircraft rockets (HVARs) mounted in the nose. If all went according to design, the aircraft and pilot would then recover to earth using separate parachutes. The concept did not do well for the Germans in WWII, with the only manned test flight ending in disaster and the death of Luftwaffe test pilot Lothar Sieber.
Apparently undaunted by their WWII experiences with the Ba-349, the modern Luftwaffe working in collaboration with the U.S. Air Force, used a single F-104G Starfighter to test the ZeLL concept in 1963. Oddly enough, the German F-104G version of the Starfighter was a multi-role aircraft evolved from the original pure interceptor design mandate of the F-104.
Unlike its early, distant predecessor the Ba-349, the Luftwaffe F-104G Starfighter ZeLL launch tests went well. Lockheed company test pilot Eldon “Ed” W. Brown Jr. remarked after the first of eight ZeLL take-offs at Edwards AFB in California during 1963 that, “All I did was push the rocket booster button and sit back. The plane was on its own for the first few seconds and then I took over. I was surprised at the smoothness, even smoother than a steam catapult launch from an aircraft carrier.”

tags: breed of speed , f104 starfighter , missle man , rocket launch, luftwaffe , nathan finneman , aviation , cold war

Survive the Drive: Blacksmiths dad hired a helicopter to find his missing son after crash

1/17/2018

TONY Lethbridge couldn't sleep.
It was early Monday morning and his 17-year-old son Samuel was missing.
It had been almost 24 hours since anyone had heard from him.
It was out of character and his family feared the worst.
A few hours earlier, after a series of unanswered calls to Samuel's mobile, Tony and his wife, Lee, had left Canberra and driven home to search for their boy.
“We got back into Newcastle about 1.30am [Monday morning] and went straight to the police station,” Tony said.
“They told us that he might have ran away, he could have done this or he could have done that and we just said it’s out of character; it’s not him.
“They put all the things in motion, and we waited and waited. They just told us to go home and wait.

But Tony could not wait - “I just couldn’t get it out of my head that he’d crashed somewhere.”
Samuel had been driving back from the Central Coast around 6.30am on Sunday. He had messaged his girlfriend and arranged to meet her at the family home at Blacksmiths after she finished work around lunchtime.
He never arrived.
As Tony's mind raced, he recalled an accident from a few years earlier along the same stretch of the Pacific Highway that he believed Samuel would have been driving on. That driver wasn't found for five days.
“And he’d passed away," Tony said. “That was in my head, so i just thought bugger this I’m not going to sit around and wait.
“With the way the bush is there, if a car goes in your not going to see it. The only way you’ll see it is from the air. And that’s what we did.
“I thought, I’m going to get a helicopter no matter what.
I just rocked in there and said ‘Mate, I’ve got $1000 – I need you to search as much as you can’.
Tony LethbridgeWith the cash in his hand, Tony walked into the Lake Macquarie Airport at 9am. On the dot.
Lee Mitchell, of Skyline Aviation Group, said the man looked "anxious and fatigued".
“He asked if he could, no - he said, he ‘needed a helicopter bad’,” said Mr Mitchell, a helicopter pilot with 18 years' flying experience.
“He told us it was for his missing son and said he believed his son had run off the road somewhere.”
The company had cancelled training flights for that morning because of high winds whipping the Hunter Region but it immediately agreed to start the search.
As Tony - who struggles with flying - drove off to go and pick up his brother, the flight crew readied the helicopter.

Tony’s brother, Michael took the flight while Tony and Lee waited for news from the family home at Blacksmiths. It didn't take long.
Within 10 minutes, they received news that a car fitting the description of Samuel’s vehicle had been spotted just off the Pacific Highway near Crangan Bay.
Immediately, Tony began the frantic drive out to the site.
The car was buried in deep bushland, and it was unclear from the helicopter if there was anyone inside.
The chopper put Samuel’s uncle Michael on the ground near the former big prawn service station.
As Michael made the grim approach to the crash site, the pilot hovered above to provide a reference for Tony and emergency services.
Fearing what he might find when he arrived, Michael began to call Samuel’s name as began the 50m walk down to the accident site.
There was no response.
But then Michael spotted Samuel moving his head inside the wreck. At that point, he sent a text message to his brother – “He’s alive”.
“When I got there, I ran down there and it was just jubilation,” Tony said.
“It was unbelievable, to find him there.”
Trapped in his vehicle for what was nearing 30 hours, Samuel was dehydrated and suffering serious injuries. A broken thigh bone was protruding three inches through the skin.
“You wouldn’t have seen him if it wasn’t for the helicopter, because I couldn’t see him from the road,” Tony said.
If the helicopter wasn’t hovering above, I would have never had found him.
Tony LethbridgeTony said it was likely the car was travelling around “80 kmh” when it ran off the road and had been totally destroyed. It’s believed the car hit a concrete pole – which ripped the driver’s side door off – and spun, rolled and luckily, landed on its wheels.
Emergency services arrived on the scene and had to cut the vehicle open to pull Samuel from the wreckage.
Stable and in intensive care on Tuesday afternoon, Samuel had undergone several scans since arriving at John Hunter Hospital
With a broken arm, dislocated elbow and little fractures “here and there” according to his dad, it is expected his recovery will be a long process. Surgery on Wednesday on his arm and leg should heal the most immediate problems.
Samuel was described by his dad as a “good, tough and very fit kid” who plays for Belmont-Swansea Football Club in the NewFM under-19’s soccer competition.
The 17-year-old had only started an electrical apprenticeship on Friday with Nova Electrical. That will now have to be put on hold.
“He spoke to me when I got down to the car, I grabbed him and I said: ‘Mate, dad’s got you’.”
Samuel’s first words to his father were: “I’d love a drink”.
“They were the only words he spoke,” Tony recalled.

Breathtaking view of Space Shuttle Launch

1/15/2018

The Space Transportation System (STS) is the formal name of NASA’s Space Shuttle, consisting of an aircraft-like orbiter, two boosters and a huge external tank.
The stack, as the composite of orbiter, tank and boosters is called, has a gross liftoff weight of 2000 tonnes. Its height is 56 m and the boosters with the three Space Shuttle Main Engines generate 30.16 MN of thrust.
Shuttle is able to loft about 24 tonnes of cargo to low orbit and transport typically seven astronauts.
OrbiterThe Orbiter is about the size of an Airbus A320 airliner, but sports the double-delta wings of a fighter. It has a crew compartment in the nose section, followed by a large payload bay and finally three main rocket engines in the aft fuselage.
The Orbiter structure is primarily aluminum alloy, with the engine structure primarily titanium alloy. The whole underbelly is covered by ceramic tiles protecting the Orbiter from the extreme heating of reentry. Each orbital vehicle was designed for 100 flights.
Specifications of Endeavour (OV-105)
Length: 37.237 m
Wingspan: 23.79 m
Height: 17.86 m
Empty weight: 78 000 kg
Gross liftoff weight: 110 000 kg
Maximum landing weight: 100 000 kg
Maximum payload: 25 060 kg
Payload to low Earth orbit: 24 310 kg
Payload bay dimensions: 4.6 x 18 m
Operational orbit altitude: 190 to 960 km
Orbital speed: 7743 m/s (27 870 km/h)
Crew: minimum of two, typically seven, maximum 11

Landing in Greenland looks like something out of starwars.

12/27/2017

There are some beautiful airports to land at, but this has to be one of the most gorgeous approaches we've seen. Just watch the video.

tags: breed of speed , landing in greenland, sirdrifto, amazing landing , aviation , winter landing , pilot , nathan finneman

Watch a Cirrus Parachute save a pilot from a spin that was ending in certain death.

12/6/2017

Dramatic video showing the recent deployment of a BRS ballistic parachute during spin recovery testing of an LSA aircraft. Test pilot became concerned about altitude loss and wisely chose to deploy his recently installed BRS, with no injuries to the pilot and only minor superficial damage to aircraft.

U.S. Navy Is Very Sorry That Their Pilot Drew A Dong In The Sky

11/17/2017

If you have been wandering around Washington State’s Okanogan County lately and thinking, wait, do I see a giant dick drawn in the sky? your eyes have not deceived you. And the United States Navy, specifically the naval air station at Whidbey Island, is very sorry about that.
Outstream Video

Spokane’s KREM Channel 2 News has a collection of viewer-submitted pictures that you can peruse at leisure, but here’s a sample:

The most monumental thing to happen in omak. A penis in the sky pic.twitter.com/SM8k1tNYaj
— Anahi Torres (@anahi_torres_) November 16, 2017

“Photos sent to KREM 2 by multiple sources show skydrawings of what some people are saying is male genitalia,” the station’s write-up read.
What some people are saying.
Anyway, the Navy released a brief statement to KREM 2 saying that they’re getting to the bottom of this: “The Navy holds its aircrew to the highest standards and we find this absolutely unacceptable, of zero training value and we are holding the crew accountable.” Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that they cannot do anything about phallic sky drawings unless there is some sort of proven safety risk. Which there is not.

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