PropBlast

While it isn't strictly aviation, it does involve and airport and some serious risk to parked (and moving aircraft) but it certainly is exciting. Live and direct from InyoKern airport it's Captain Slow and Ken Block:

 

I'm a huge fan of the Top Gear shows (seen here on BBC America) but I truly had to cringe watching this guy slalom around aircraft tied down on the ramp at KIYK. With their budget I'm sure they were fully insured but if I had a plane on the ramp there and hadn't given permission for the plane to be used as a traffic cone, I think I'd be having a word or two with the Mr. Seymour...

Tags: rally, top gear, inyo kern

You've got to love an airline that doesn't take itself too seriously. Kulula airlines, a low cost carrier in South Africa seems to be taking the Southwest formula to the extreme. Any airline that names their frequent flyer points Kulula Moolah has my vote for a fun airline to travel with.

Below are some examples of one of their planes that is painted in such a way as to label all the

 

Tags: photos, videos

I ran across this while doing some searching on the 'Net and thought, what fun you could have with your friends during a flight navigating via GPS.

Just kidding, I'm sure the use of such a device in flight would be contrary to the FAA's rules on electronics in flight. But perhaps not... For Part 91 operations (non-revenue general aviation flights) operating under VFR flight rules, the use of any portable electronic device  that the operator (PIC) has determined will not cause interference with the navigation or communication system of the aircraft on which it is to be used.

I wonder, does flight instruction fall under Part 91? 'cause a CFI is the PIC (at least when flying with student pilots). Wonder if they could use this to "simulate" loss of GPS signal much like when they fail any other instrument on a student? Any of your CFIs care to take a stab at this? Seems like this would be a more realistic scenario than turning down the display or pulling a circuit breaker.

Ostensibly, these offer you the following benefits (according to the manufacturer, their wording, not ours):

1. To prevent GPS satellite positioning tracking
2. Black GPS satellite signal, protect your whereabouts privacy and confidential information
3. Block all GPS satellite signal
4. Not affect mobile phones and other electronic equipments working
5. Samll size, high power, light weight, great coverage, easy to carry

Of course, I'm not an aviation attorney so don't take anything I say as advise when operating your aircraft!

Tags: gps

Stumbled across this humorous parody song and had to share it with you all. Our hats off to those Northwest pilots on Flight 188 for inspiring this hilarity.

And here's a YouTube video of it:

BTW - For those interested, here is the flight track of their flight:

Tags: humor

I was browsing through the excellent photos from Sun/Fun on AvWeb and found something odd about this airplane.

They had it listed in Light Sport section of photos and the first thing that caught my eye was that it seemed a bit, what’s the word, bloated? I mean, this flyer must be designed for the average American today rather than they mythical 180 pound adult from the 50’s. This is the most bulbous Light Sport I’ve ever seen.

Then it hit me, even though they’ve got an engine in this thing (or so it appears), the tail is propped up! Perhaps the engine really isn’t in there after all…Here’s a picture of “the biggest LSA ever designed and built” according to the factory website:

Of course, this is the same company that is developing the Private Explorer, described as “the first camping plane” that will deliver a “’Winnebago’-style cabin and a big useful load”. That one is even going to come with bed, table, fridge, stove, toilet, shower, water pump, heater, opening screen window and lighting!

Tags: lsa, humor

Heard various aviation podcasters talking about this video and had to find it for myself.

Fly-by on Oakland Airport Control Tower

Sure hope nobody spilled their coffee...

EDITED 1/23/2010: Embedded YouTube Video since the myspace one above appears to have been deleted:

Tags: video redbull

The old saw is that the last things you want to hear on an airplane is the pilot saying "Hey, watch this."

I think after reading this excerpt from Planecrashinfo.com's Unusual Crashes page, I'd add to the last thing you want to hear would be a jump-seat pilot snickering behind you:

As a prank, a captain riding in the jump seat engaged the gust lock in flight. The command pilot, not knowing the gust lock had been engaged, rolled the elevator trim tab with no response. When the jump seat  captain disengaged the gust lock, the aircraft went into into a steep dive, executed part of an outside roll and become inverted. Neither the command nor jump seat captain had seat belts on and they accidentally feathered No. 1, 2 and 4 engines when they hit the controls with their heads. No one realized it at the time but the feathering reduced power and allowed the co-pilot, who was strapped in, to pull out of the dive 350 feet from the ground.

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John over at Aviation Mentor Blog blogged today that "All in all, a great day to be a pilot." He went on with a few examples of humorous exchanges with ATC that he overheard while flying a Caravan from California to Oregon and back.

While my flights today were nowhere near as long, I had the pleasure of overhearing one of those exchanges that just made us all laugh...

Today was my first IFR cross-country flight with my instructor and when we were returning from CRQ, ATC informed us that they were going to vector us from V23 across the approach course to the ILS of 19R at SNA for right hand entry to the approach. This is not too uncommon given that there are mountains to the east of the approach course that would make vectors to final from the south with a left-hand entry dangerous (as seen graphically in this approach chart).

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Shortly after crossing the approach course we overheard a conversation between ATC and a pilot for whom, English was not their primary language. Every time that ATC would tell the pilot that she could descend at her own discretion, she would reply

Cessna 1234 at 4 thousand 5 hundred."

The controller rephrased this close to a dozen times before she started to clue in and said something to the effect of

what altitude do you want me at?"

to which he replied

I don't really care where you put your plane"

to which she replied that she was going to stay at 4,500 feet.

The radio was dead silent as I'm sure all pilots in hearing distance were either laughing in their cockpits or shaking there heads when the controller came back on to anyone who was listening that he

want(ed) to see how she's going to land her plane at 4,500 feet."

Perhaps it was something that you had to be there to fully get. Perhaps it is time for me to start recording audio on my flights for later playback 'cause this exchange was priceless.

In case you are wondering how the flight went, my performance on the ILS at SNA was MUCH better than I did at CRQ. I don't know why but I think I was too tense at CRQ and just seemed to be too ham-handed in my corrections, and slow to boot.

I was spotting and correcting trends on the localizer and the glide slope much better at SNA. About the only excitement came as we were coming down the ILS 19R. Tower wanted us to move over to 19L and Ron asked if we could take it down to minimums before sidestepping and tower replied they were OK with that.

We got down to about 300 feet when Ron decided I should go ahead and come out from under the hood rather than waiting to hit minimums since as we were coming down, tower was positioning an airliner onto 19R. You can imagine them begining the turn from taxiway Lima to 19R watching this Cirrus continue down the glideslope right at them.

Making that sidestep means transitioning from a 5701x150 foot runway to a 2887x75 foot runway that is over a football field to the left of primary runway (as seen in this airport diagram from FAA)!

While this is not a dangerous manuever by any means, it does make for a rather quick transition to VFR flying. I ballooned a bit on the landing as I felt I was flaring too low and ended up overcompensating. I suppose most piplots are never as happy with their own landings. All in all though, any day you get to fly makes it a great day! 

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Looks like Tom Cruise's P-51 doesn't offer him enough thrills any more. Either that or he now needs a plane with room for Katie and Surrey(sp?).

Great taste in planes! Now if only I could could step up into a P-51<G>. I guess I would settle for a P-47...

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Follow along as an Australian Air Force pilot does a belly landing in an F-111 airplane. Very good stuff!

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Well, here's an interesting approach to raising money via eBay. An aspiring missionary pilot is asking people to donate money toward flight hours and additional training so he can reach his goal of 500 hours (currently at 60) and get on board with an aero-missionary organization.

And, if you are kind enough to donate your airplane for him to fly, he'll even donate it to a Christian ministry or charity of your choice. What a guy!

Although, one has to admire not only his chutzpah, but also his dedication. I'm guessing he really wants to do this but one wonders how many others are/were in this same boat and they worked two or more jobs to pay for the flight time to reach goals such as this instead of sticking their hand out. Each has their own way of doing things I guess. Best of luck to you computer_doc...

eBay Link [cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/MISSIONARY-TO-BE-PILOT-NEEDS-FLIGHT-HOURS-TRAINING_W0QQitemZ130024530883QQihZ003QQcategoryZ63677QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem]

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but want to feel like you where there? You can always use the archive feature at LiveATC.Net to listen to ATC at KOSH (or any airport for that matter) for any 30 minute block over the last seven days.

In fact, if this would be a great way to check your radio techniques if your local airport, or one that you've visited lately, is available on their list of feeds.

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You be the judge...

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Seems lilke you could no longer spot a pilot by the lenght of their left (or right) arm... The big, honkin' watch syndrome that lead to these elongated appendages seems to have fallen out of favor but never fear. You can quite often still spot your fellow aero-addicts by the computers they carry around.

Seems that pilots are more inclined to using Tablet PCs than most folks. Today wasn't the first, and probably won't be the last, time that I've been approached by someone interested and knowledgable about Tablets only to find out they were also a pilot. While trying to squeeze out some work before work at the local Starbucks, a gentleman named Albert came up to chat with me when he saw me banging away on my HP TC1100 tablet.

Turns out he is a Citation pilot flying out of CRQ as a company pilot. He is a Fujitsu guy but as any good aviator would, he is looking for the Next Big Thing in little computers. His primary use is as an EFB, coupled with a Bluetooth printer that allows him to print out approach plates as necessary. Pity he doesn't have a TAA like our Cirrus<G>. Turns out this high flying jet still has "steam" gauges for much of the panel. Well, sounds like the company he flies for is planning on stepping up to something with more range to make trips to the owner's home in Hawaii easier. Life is rough but I can certainly imagine making a 5 1/2 hour commute with nothing to look at but whitecaps might get boring after a while...

Who am I kidding? Of course I would jump at the chance to fly for a living like this!

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Just east of where I sit today is one of the few acrobatic practice areas left in Southern California. This video of the 2006 Sportsman class routine is by James Pratt, who also flies out ouf Sunrise Aviation at SNA. Check it out!

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This YouTube video has some INCREDIBLE nap of the earth flying. Amazing to see the pilot screaming across the desert at minimal altitude reading a map! Check it out!

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between the plane and the floats...

This picture, found on the Priceless website, shows the sad fate of this Cessna floatplane. Quite often I've heard of straight float planes putting it down on a wet grass runway without out too much problem. However, it appears that the floats decided that this was a no-go operation and the forward struts collapsed as a result.

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I can only assume this is another entry in  Fun With Photoshop journals. I can't imagine a commercial airliner pulling up to the gate windows with this on it's nose. But then again, you never really do know, do you?

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Wow, don't see this every day, do you? This is one of a series of photos now showing on a South African aviation website called AviationDimension.com. You will need to log into their site (Free) in order to get access to the photogallery. Their description of the stunt is as follows: "One early morning a very creative and perhaps insane bunch of guys decided to create a world first. Ever seen a 2500kg World War II trainer skip and ski across a dam...well here's your chance. This is not a made-up photo and it is strongly advised that you do not try this at home!"

There are 3 photos that are part of this gallery, one of which shows a bunch of fisherman in a boat watching this spectacle roar on by. They also have a "How'd They Do That" album that contains more images. Well worth checking out!

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Ever want to know what goes on behind the closed cockpit door and/or the pulled galley curtain on commercial airline flights? If so, then this is the podcast for you. Fly With Me () is produced by "a pilot for a major airline" who takes his portable recorder along with him in the air so he can share conversations (in the air and on the ground) with his listeners. Well worth checking out...

BTW - If you don't know what a podcast is, then you can go to http://ipodder.org/whatIsPodcasting for more information.

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The picture pretty much says it all. Amazing the amount of damage that 20 pound bird can do at 160 knots... Reminds me of the quote "He took a duck in the face at two hundred and fifty knots". Anyone know what novel that was from? First one with the correct answer receives a free "Got Prop" t-shirt! Use the Contact Us page to enter...

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