[M_Six]

Originally Posted by Llarry

In World War II, blimp patrols were conducted from both East and West coasts, though the German U-boat threat made the East coast more vital to the war effort. Blimp bases were established at various spots along the U.S. coast; one that I have visited is at Tillamook, Oregon, where two blimp hangars were constructed, mostly of wood. Here is a 1943 mid-construction shot of one.

There was an aviation museum in the surviving hangar for many years and when visiting, I would somewhat nervously look far up at the 80-year-old wooden beams and wonder that would happen if one were to fall!

The second hangar was used for storage of hay for years and burned down years ago, leaving only the concrete pillars that supported the doors.

I grew up in a town with a naval air station. I remember blimps floating past our house and there were blimp pylons along one of the main routes through town. When the P-3 Prions came along, the blimps were decommissioned. Years later when they were taking down the blimp hanger, it suddenly collapsed and killed one of the workers. The circular concrete area where the blimps were tethered for maintenance is still there.

[3.0L]

How to get your ass in a sling:

https://slingaircraft.com/

[Lady Jane]

Originally Posted by 3.0L

How to get your ass in a sling:

https://slingaircraft.com/

I like the high wing model with the Rotax fuel injected engine. No wing struts and no carb heat to worry about. It relegates the 172 into the pre-historic annals of flight.

[M-technik-3]

My Dad's last duty station was South Weymouth Naval Air Station. It too was at one time a blimp base. He was no longer flying when he got there in 68. I was born not far from there in late 66 case of Dad leaving for Vietnam.



Used to go to all the airshows and we sat in the flying squadron seats.

[Llarry]

One of the U.S. Navy's most unusual squadrons is Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 30 (VX-30) "Bloodhounds" based at Point Mugu, California.

VX-30 used a number of P-3 Orions for many years for range clearance and surveillance in the Pacific missile test range. Those P-3s are now gone or nearly so, leaving the squadron with three aircraft types: Lockheed KC-130T Hercules refueling aircraft (ex-Marine Corps), Northrop Grumman E-2D Hawkeye airborne warning and control aircraft and a single NC-20G Gulfstream IV. As indicated by the N prefix, the NC-20G has been modified for test work.

[3.0L]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

I like the high wing model with the Rotax fuel injected engine. No wing struts and no carb heat to worry about. It relegates the 172 into the pre-historic annals of flight.

The latest version of the Cessna 172 has a 180 HP fuel injected Lycoming
engine. Way ‘mo better than the early versions:

https://cessna.txtav.com/en/piston/c...B&gclsrc=aw.ds

[Lady Jane]

WHOA...!!!

" Southwest flight barely misses collision at Chicago Midway International airport"

VIDEO: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/loca...rport/3682589/

[3.0L]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

WHOA...!!!

" Southwest flight barely misses collision at Chicago Midway International airport"

VIDEO: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/loca...rport/3682589/



Attachment 3675196

That could cause a laundry problem! 😳

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

WHOA...!!!

" Southwest flight barely misses collision at Chicago Midway International airport"

Attachment 3675196

What are the odds that ATC is going to be asking the corporate jet pilot to copy down the dreaded phone number and read it back after that one?????

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by 3.0L

That could cause a laundry problem! 😳

Does Southwest charge extra for in-flight laundry service?????

[3.0L]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

What are the odds that ATC is going to be asking the corporate jet pilot to copy down the dreaded phone number and read it back after that one?????

Back in my flying days I heard the tower dude at our local airport instruct
an errant pilot to “Pick up the phone at the base of the tower” after he
parked his airplane. ��

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

WHOA...!!!

" Southwest flight barely misses collision at Chicago Midway International airport"

VIDEO: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/loca...rport/3682589/

Attachment 3675196

Please, no.

27 March 1977 - Los Rodeos Airport (Tenerife North Airport): KLM Flight 4805 impacting the right side of Pan Am Flight 1736. 583 fatalities.



"Collision
According to the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), the Pan Am captain said, "There he is!" when he spotted the KLM's landing lights through the fog just as his plane approached exit C4. When it became clear that the KLM aircraft was approaching at takeoff speed, Captain Grubbs exclaimed, "Goddamn, that son-of-a-bitch is coming!", while first officer Robert Bragg yelled, "Get off! Get off! Get off!" Grubbs applied full power to the throttles and made a sharp left turn towards the grass in an attempt to avoid the impending collision.
By the time the KLM pilots saw the Pan Am aircraft, they had already exceeded their V1 speed and were moving too fast to stop. In desperation, the pilots prematurely rotated the aircraft nose upward and attempted to clear the Pan Am by lifting off, causing a 22 m (72 ft) tailstrike. The KLM 747 was within 100 m (330 ft) of the Pan Am and moving at approximately 140 knots (260 km/h; 160 mph) when it left the ground. Its nose landing gear cleared the Pan Am, but its left-side engines, lower fuselage, and main landing gear struck the upper right side of the Pan Am's fuselage, ripping apart the center of the Pan Am jet almost directly above the wing. The right-side engines crashed through the Pan Am's upper deck immediately behind the cockpit, instantly killing all of the passengers seated there.
The KLM plane remained briefly airborne, but the impact had sheared off the outer left engine, caused significant amounts of shredded materials to be ingested by the inner left engine, and damaged the wings. The plane immediately went into a stall, rolled sharply, and hit the ground approximately 150 m (500 ft) past the collision, sliding down the runway for a further 300 m (1,000 ft). Upon impact with the runway, the full load of fuel, which had caused the earlier delay, ignited immediately into a fireball that could not be subdued for several hours. One of the 61 survivors of the Pan Am flight said that sitting in the nose of the plane probably saved his life: "We all settled back, and the next thing an explosion took place and the whole port side, left side of the plane, was just torn wide open."
Veldhuyzen van Zanten was KLM's chief of flight training and one of their most senior pilots. About two months before the accident, he had conducted the Boeing 747 qualification check on the first officer of Flight 4805. His photograph was used for publicity materials such as magazine advertisements, including the inflight magazine on board PH-BUF. KLM had suggested initially that Veldhuyzen van Zanten should help with the investigation, unaware that he was the captain who had been killed in the accident."
(source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster)

Further to this horrific accident, 'crew resource management' or 'cockpit resource management' was introduced or at least streamlined.

"Lessons Learned from the Tenerife Airport Disaster" (Aug 18, 2020):
https://incident-prevention.com/blog...port-disaster/

[Llarry]

During World War II, it became clear that jet-powered aircraft had good potential for high performance. But they also suffered from slow initial acceleration. In 1943, the U.S. Navy contracted with Ryan to design and test a composite fighter with both piston and jet engines. The Navy ended up buying 66 Ryan FR-1 Fireball fighters -- only enough to equip a single squadron. The FR-1 only served for a short period after the end of the war in 1945. Its performance did not match contemporary piston fighters such as the F6F Hellcat, F8F Bearcat or F4U Corsair.

[Llarry]

The U.S. Air Force bought 180 T-1A pilot trainers. Of those, half have been retired, and the Air Force plans to retire the other half over the next year or two. VR and simulators will fill the void and prepare pilots for their final assignments.

Does this sound wrong to anybody else?

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by Llarry

VR and simulators will fill the void and prepare pilots for their final assignments.

Does this sound wrong to anybody else?

Having a meat-based control interface inside of an airplane is soooooo 20th century. Drones flying either autonomously or via remote control from a central video game room on the ground are going to be the future of the Chair Force.....

[Chappers 71]

A Lancaster flew over my house & despite hearing the four Rolls Royce Merlin’s before it came into sight by the time I’d found my phone, gone outside & switched to camera these were the best pics I was able to take.

[Lady Jane]

Originally Posted by Llarry

VR and simulators will fill the void and prepare pilots for their final assignments.

Does this sound wrong to anybody else?

To my knowledge, all F-35 training is done in the simulator since there are no dual-seats. Graduation occurs on your first actual flight.

In the past, many training flights took place in other aircrafts. For example, my dad's Sabre training took place in a T-Bird. Experience and proficiency came on the job. "Here's the key. Try to bring it back."

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

To my knowledge, all F-35 training is done in the simulator since there are no dual-seats. Graduation occurs on your first actual flight.

In the past, many training flights took place in other aircrafts. For example, my dad's Sabre training took place in a T-Bird. Experience and proficiency came on the job. "Here's the key. Try to bring it back."

True, and many other examples can be cited: F-22, F-14, etc.

The USAF bought many two-seat trainers such as F-100F, F-104B/D, F-105D, F-106B, but not so much in recent decades.

[Llarry]

Speaking of "station wagon" fighters, one of the differences between the U.S. Navy F-4Bs and those of the Air Force was dual controls in the USAF F-4C.

[vreihen16]

https://www.businessinsider.com/test...nd-f-35-2025-2

F-35 test pilot shares what it's like to jump from flying an old F-16 to Lockheed Martin's newest 5th-gen stealth fighter

Jake Epstein
Feb 15, 2025, 5:03 AM ET

A test pilot who made the jump from the now fifty-year-old F-16 to the new F-35 stealth fighter told Business Insider that it is a wildly different experience.

Think about the informational overload you would get from swapping out a decades-old pickup truck for a modern Tesla. There's a lot of extra information pilots get from the F-35, which is equipped with a suite of new technologies compared to legacy aircraft.

Monessa Balzhiser, call sign "Siren," is a pilot who has had the opportunity to move over to the new jet, working as an F-35 test pilot at Lockheed Martin's production facility in Forth Worth, Texas, following years flying the F-16 for the US Air Force.

The F-16 Fighting Falcon, a Lockheed Martin airframe originally manufactured by General Dynamics, is a single-engine, multi-role aircraft that took its first flight over 50 years ago. The fourth-generation fighter jet was developed for the US Air Force but is now in service with more than two dozen militaries around the world, including — as of last year — the Ukrainian armed forces.

The F-16 was revolutionary from an aircraft design philosophy perspective, with fly-by-wire controls for improved air-to-air combat capabilities. But in the age of stealth aircraft and higher-end surface-to-air threats, the F-16, even with the upgrades the fighter has gotten over the years to ensure it still packs a punch, is losing its once formidable edge.

The much-newer F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter is a supersonic stealth aircraft that took its first flight nearly 20 years ago. The platform has evolved tremendously over the years.

The aircraft has faced criticism amid developmental setbacks, sustainability challenges, and rising costs (the expected lifetime cost of the program is now over $2 trillion), but the jet is constantly being upgraded and reworked for improved capability. Right now, no adversary capability compares, but new jets are coming out in rival nations. China, for instance, unveiled a number of new aircraft designs late last year, including what some suspect was a sixth-gen fighter prototype.

"The F-35 — we're continuing to develop it," Siren said.

"You're going to see threats — adversaries — evolving," so the priority is maintaining the advantage "to ensure we can come home safe," she added.

The F-35 is the second fifth-generation fighter jet operated by the US after the F-22 Raptor and comes in three variants flown by the Air Force, Marines, and Navy. Developed and produced as part of a multinational partnership, the jet is operated by many American allies, with more looking to do so in the future.

Siren flew the F-16 in the Air Force for 13 years, a tenure that included several combat tours. At Lockheed Martin, she works as the chief production pilot for the F-35.

Test pilots are the first people to actually fly the F-35 off the factory floor. The fighter will get airborne several times — the first two or three flights are with the company — before the US government goes through all its checks to make sure the jet is all good and ready to be sold.

For Siren, the biggest difference when she made the transition from the F-16 to the new F-35 was the sheer amount of information being presented to the pilot.

Siren said that in the F-16, "we had some of that information, but it was all shown on multiple different displays or formats."

In the past, the pilot had to calculate how to use certain tactics or interpret the presented battlespace in their heads, but the F-35 does all of that for the pilot, allowing them to focus their efforts more on the bigger mission picture. Another F-35 test pilot previously told BI that it can be difficult to get good at managing all the information, comparing the jet to a sophisticated video game.

Siren said the biggest surprise of the F-35 was its flight controls in low-speed scenarios. The fifth-generation fighter jet is equipped with a better sensor suite, situational awareness, and data fusion capabilities than the F-16. Those advanced capabilities allow it to perform as more than a fighter jet.

The advantage of the F-16 has always been in its speed and turn rate, she told BI. "However, all the flight controls and the computer that runs the flight controls on the F-35 allows me to intercept — on the same mission — a slow, low Cessna going 80 knots to a high, fast flyer going Mach 1.2," which is over 900 mph.

That helpful ability and "the high angle of attack that the F-35 can perform was what caught me off guard coming from the F-16," she said.

[Llarry]

Although I did post an F-4 photo on Phantom Phriday, this is the one I originally intended to post. A UK RAF Phantom FGR.2 loaded for Bear or Badger or Backfire or whatever else was a threat. Eight AAMs, a centerline gun pod and two external fuel tanks.

The UK Spey-powered Phantoms are easy to differentiate from the jet exhausts. Just to confuse matters a bit, there were a few ex-USN F-4Js (with original J79 engines) in service with the RAF late in the Phantom's life. (see second photo.)

[Llarry]

A better photo of the appearance of an OA-1K Skyriader II, complete with sensor pod and a pair of rocket pods, plus a bomb (?) under the right wing.

The OA-1K designation is ludicrous, as the aircraft has nothing to do with the A-1J Skyraider, which was retired ages ago.