Archive for Aviation - page 2

…there is a large wildfire burning in the mountains about 60 miles east of where I live.  Unlike some wildfires in California, this one is threatening property and homes, therefore a lot of resources are going into fighting it.  According to this story, as of 3:00 PM PDT the fire has reached over 18,000 acres and there are approximately 2,500 men fighting it.

There are at least 5 air tankers flying out of McClellan Field whose flight paths take them directly over my house.  One of these is the largest air tanker there is, the DC-10.  The others, as near as I can tell, are a pair of  BAe 146s and a Lockheed P-2V and at least one C-130.  I will update periodically with photos, if I can get them.  By the time I hear ’em coming and get outside with the camera, they’re gone.

Update – got a couple pictures.  Photos taken 9/18/14 (click on photo to enlarge – a LOT) :

DC-10 Number 912

BAe-146 (Neptune Inc.)

Cross posted at Men Out of Work Blog

I have a new aviation post up at The Men Out of Work Blog:

A Memorial You Will Probably Never See To An Astronaut You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

It seems like the right time for this – this is fire season.  All over the west, but in California…Northern California in particular.  Since I live near an airfield with a long runway, the occasional large tanker flies over my house.  So why not do a little post with some video of the largest air tanker in operation in the U.S.?  That would be the DC-10 “Rainmaker”.  The McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 is a wide-body airliner that is no longer used for commercial passenger flight.  It’s three engine configuration, with two engines mounted on wing pylons and the third engine mounted at the base of the vertical stabilizer makes it easily identifiable whether on the ground or in flight.  The DC-10 ended production in 1989.

Here’s a Modern Marvels segment that give you the basic facts:

Here’s some footage taken by a news crew that was in the drop zone:

There are only two of these flying, Tanker 910 and Tanker 911.  Quite a machine.  Glad we have ’em.

Having been busy the last few days I have not had time to note the 45th Anniversaries of the first manned moon landing by Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969 and the first men walking on the moon – Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin on July 21.  I was twelve years old when it happened, and I remember the interest in the event was intense and universal.  It was broadcast live on all three major networks, TV and radio were the only sources for live information at that time – no internet or cable TV yet.  Looking back now, especially at the moon landing sequence, it was a little risky airing it live.  Some years afterward we found out that the landing computer “overloaded” and began spewing error codes, and rather than wasting effort to translate the codes Armstrong and Aldrin shut it off and flew the Eagle in manually.  They landed with 30 seconds of fuel remaining.  Here are some highlights:

People worldwide were glued to their TV sets.  For at least a brief moment, it seemed humanity shared a common dream, embodied by two men and an idea.  It was a monumental feat carried out at great risk.  I do not believe that a mission like this could even be carried out today as risk averse as we seem to be, and as evidenced by the fact that manned space flight has been all but abandoned.  And we are worse off for it.

I am still at a loss as to what to call this..accident? atrocity?  It seems certain now that Ukrainian Separatists (Putin’s proxy army) recklessly committed this act, thinking they were shooting at a Ukrainian military transport.  There is a civil war going on over there, though you would never know it by reading the American media.  So I’m settling on incident for now.  Here is a link to a story at the Daily Mail (UK) with in depth information on the surface-to-air missile system used to shoot down the jet.  If you don’t want to read the whole article, this graphic has a lot of info as well.

According to this Washington Post story, the Ukrainian government has released surveillance video of a flatbed truck hauling a Russian surface-to-air missile lanucher heading out of Separatist controlled Eastern Ukraine into Russia.  The launcher and missiles are of the type believed to be responsible for the destruction of a Malaysian Airlines plane yesterday which resulted in over 300 civilian deaths.  Russia and the Russian backed Separatists have denied involvement, pointing the finger of blame at the Ukrainian government.  Separatists control the Ukrainian territory where the airliner came down, and the speculation is that they are “sanitizing” what is essentially a huge crime scene, combing it for any remnants of the missile which destroyed the Boeing 777 and removing them.  US surveillance of the war zone indicated that a radar associated with this type of surface-to-air missile system was in operation at the time of the incident, but could not pinpoint the area the missile was launched from.

Cross posted at Men Out of Work Blog

I’m not sure incident is the correct word, but at this point I do not know exactly what to call this.

A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 has crashed in Ukraine, and there are reports that it was shot down during the conflict there among Ukrainians, Russians and Ukrainians aligned with Russia known as “separatists”.  So you have Ukrainian military fighting with Separatists who are aligned with and backed by Putin’s Russia.

Here are the basic facts as we know them now.  The airliner was enroute from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and cruising at altitude (33,000 ft) when contact was lost over Ukraine, and reports of an airplane crash began coming in.  Eye witness accounts say the aircraft “fell in pieces” and preliminary reports indicate a very large debris field consistent with a breakup of the plane at cruising altitude.  There were no survivors at the crash site.  There are rumors also that at the same time Separatists were on Twitter claiming to have just shot down a Ukrainian military transport, as they had previously done a day or two before. Once Malaysia Airlines confirmed it’s flight was missing, the tweets were deleted.  The Separatists are also believed to be in possession of the type of military ground-to-air missiles that would be capable of striking an aircraft at that high altitude.  The plane was flying too high to be vulnerable to a shoulder-launched “stinger” type missile.  As far as I can tell those are the facts.

Now for the speculation: it is very possible that the Boeing 777 airliner was shot down by Separatists who mistook it for a Ukrainian AN-26 transport.  It is confirmed they had shot one down a day or two before this incident.  The planes look nothing alike, but they are of similar size, and if the separatists had reports of military planes in the area, then undisciplined operators or commanders could have made the error.  There is also this:  the Kiev Post is reporting that the Ukrainian Security Force (SBU) intercepted phone calls between Separatist commanders talking about the situation which seem to confirm the hypothesis of mistaken identity.  Chilling, if true:

Igor Bezler: We have just shot down a plane. Group Minera. It fell down beyond Yenakievo (Donetsk Oblast).

Vasili Geranin: Pilots. Where are the pilots?

IB: Gone to search for and photograph the plane. Its smoking.

VG: How many minutes ago?

IB: About 30 minutes ago.

SBU comment: After examining the site of the plane the terrorists come to the conclusion that they have shot down a civilian plane. The next part of the conversation took place about 40 minutes later.

“Major”: These are Chernukhin folks who shot down the plane. From the Chernukhin check point. Those cossacks who are based in Chernukhino.

“Grek”: Yes, Major.

“Major”: The plane fell apart in the air. In the area of Petropavlovskaya mine. The first “200” (code word for dead person). We have found the first “200”. A Civilian.

“Greek”: Well, what do you have there?

“Major”: In short, it was 100 percent a passenger (civilian) aircraft.

“Greek”: Are many people there?

“Major”: Holy sh__t! The debris fell right into the yards (of homes).

“Greek”: What kind of aircraft?

“Major”: I haven’t ascertained this. I haven’t been to the main sight. I am only surveying the scene where the first bodies fell. There are the remains of internal brackets, seats and bodies.

“Greek”: Is there anything left of the weapon?

“Major”: Absolutely nothing. Civilian items, medicinal stuff, towels, toilet paper.

“Greek”: Are there documents?

“Major”: Yes, of one Indonesian student. From a university in Thompson. 

Militant: Regarding the plane shot down in the area of Snizhne-Torez. It’s a civilian one. Fell down near Grabove. There are lots of corpses of women and children. The Cossacks are out there looking at all this.

They say on TV it’s AN-26 transport plane, but they say it’s written Malaysia Airlines on the plane. What was it doing on Ukraine’s territory?

Like I said, chilling if true.  I’m sure there will be a lot of finger pointing by both sides before we find out what actually happened.   280 passengers and 15 crew lost.  Many different nationalities on board, including Americans.  This is a full blown International Incident which will put the Ukrainian conflict in the front pages for some time.

Additional Info:

New York Times

Fox News

Kiev Post

The answer to the age-old question “How do you get four Boeing 737s into a river?”  Why, throw them off a train, of course.  I mean…duh.  Short story: on July 3rd, a train carrying Boeing 737 fuselages derailed near Missoula, Montana dumping three of the fuselages into the Clark Fork River.  The aircraft sections were enroute from Wichita, Kansas to Boeing’s assembly plant in Renton, Washington near Seattle.  The options for shipping something so large are few, and Spirit AeroSystems, the company that builds the fuselages for Boeing, says that they ship 42 fuselages per month this way.  By the way, the fuselage is the central “tube” section or cabin of the aircraft.

The Clark Fork River is popular with rafters, so imagine floating around a bend and seeing this:

No injuries were reported, and the cause is under investigation.  The train was traveling under the 35 mile per hour speed limit for that stretch of track.

There is a sayingthat there are old pilots and there are bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots.  Meaning that “bold” piloting was risky piloting and therefore precluded a bold pilot’s reaching  “old pilot” status.  The statement is not universally true, and these guys are living proof.  Calling themselves the Old Bold Pilots Association, or OBPA, they number around 330, and every week at the Denny’s in Oceanside, California sixty or so of them show up for breakfast and a bull session.  And I would imagine those bull sessions are EPIC.  Though truth be told, most of these guys were young bold military pilots during wartime and were lucky or skilled enough to live through it to old age.  Some of their stories are shared in this Air & Space Magazine article  entitled Tales of the Old Bold Pilots.  It started out with a few retired military pilots just getting together to shoot the bull with other guys who had stories to share and it took off from there.

some of the OBPA in front of the Oceanside Denny’s

I’ve know some old military pilots, war veterans – my father was one.  The stereotype that these guys are always sitting around reliving their escapades it total fiction.  They almost never talk about it…to people who havent experienced it themselves and can’t relate to it, that is.  My father never told his stories unless his friends came to visit, then the adults would retire to one room and we kids would overhear snippetts if we were even interested enough to eavesdrop.  Once I was old enough to care, I had to read the stories in old newspaper clippings or hear about them from others who were there.

So whenever these guys get together, their stories can be told and I’m glad for that.  Click over to the article to read a few, or click here or here to read a couple good ones at Men Out of Work Blog.

I have not written a post about the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 since May 18th  because there have been no new developments.  Yesterday, however it was reported in the Wall Street Journal that Australian Authorities have announced a new search area and are seeking bids from private contractors to search that area.

Since the plane disappeared on March 8th, thousands of square miles of the Indian Ocean west of Australia have been searched, but have yielded no trace of the missing plane.  The new search area was deduced using a combination of known facts and educated guesswork.  The current assumption is that the plane’s autopilot was switched on (it could not have been accidentally engaged) after the plane deviated from it’s assigned course, and that the plane flew on it’s own for several hours after the crew was disabled, possibly from hypoxia or oxygen depletion.

This is a mystery that may never be solved.  The search area is immense and in arguably the most remote and unfriendly ocean in the world.  Even if the wreck is found it may not hold all the answers to what happened and why.  The investigation continues…

WSJ: Australian Report Postulates Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Lost Oxygen