Flying-AThis idea actually goes back to the dawn of the Space Age (great color photo):
Flying-Abut I understand that losses of SE planes weren’t all that rare back in the glory days of GA aircraft in the 50s-70s
Indeed! While researching the crash of the Chase YC-122 on 11 January 1967, I was stunned to discover that there had been 13 accidents involving single engine GA aircraft on that day in the United States. Two were fatal:
One involved another aircraft that vanished over water, a Globe GC-1B Swift that disappeared over Lake Michigan while flying from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, to Benton Harbor, Michigan. The sole occupant, the pilot, was never found and presumed dead.
The other was a Cessna 150 that crashed near Farwell, Texas (in the Texas Panhandle along the Texas-New Mexico state line, near Clovis, NM). All three persons aboard — pilot and two passengers — died. There are three additional twists of the knife in this case: one of the passengers was seven years old; the other was six; and the probable cause includes “UNWARRANTED LOW FLYING.”
That same day, there were four GA twin accidents as well, for a grand total of 18. The day was a Wednesday in winter, so we can’t blame that high number on the skies being full on a warm weekend.
Flying-ANot just a warbird, but a rare bird: a Chase YC-122 Avitruc, tail number N122E, in the airdrop sequence in the Ivan Tors feature film Daring Game, filmed at his studio in Miami and on location in the Bahamas, and released in 1968.
During production of the film, the YC-122 crashed into the Atlantic near Hollywood, Florida, on 11 January 1967. News accounts mention that wreckage was found, but that all four persons aboard the plane were lost. The NTSB online database shows that no distress call was heard and that no cause was established. Because of the location of the crash, the incident is sometimes included the Bermuda Triangle legend.
Flying-AGenie had no fusing, the warhead was detonated by a timer.
Thanks. This might be a matter of semantics — one writer’s timer is another’s fuse.
I once read something about detonation by radio signal, but I wouldn’t swear to it.
No guidance system — the blast area rendered it moot and it would have been just another thing that could have been jammed or malfunctioned.
with a dumb waiter in the transporter room
The people in charge of the sets insisted on this. Afraid of stains from a spill, they didn’t wanted a tray of food and a beverage being carried through the corridors. (Apparently that wasn’t a concern during the making of “Amok Time”, i.e., Spock’s temper tantrum when Nurse Chapel brings soup to him. Then there was him smashing the monitor in his quarters, the Vulcan temple/duelling grounds set, a multitude of pointed ears, and a script bought from Theodore Sturgeon — budget buster!) 😉
Flying-AEarly in the episode, Spock warns that the interceptor might be carrying nuclear missiles capable of inflicting serious damage on the ship. That would mean either the Douglas AIR-2 Genie (actually unguided and fuze detonated) or the Hughes AIM-26A Nuclear Falcon.
The F-104 was cleared to carry the Genie, but never did operationally. The AIM-26A saw only limited deployment with the F-102. Thus, a more thorough search of the Enterprise’s data banks would have found that the F-104 posed little threat to the ship.
But then there would have been no episode (with a dumb waiter in the transporter room!).
Flying-A“This is your captain speaking. Can somebody lend me a Shell card? Mine is maxed out.”
Alitalia may start canceling flights — can’t afford fuel
http://www.gadling.com (via AOL News)
Grant Martin Sep 15th 2008 @ 7:30AM
Alitalia has been going through a bit of a rough patch of late. Even before the fuel crisis this past summer, Italy’s national airline was already struggling with poor service, unhappy unions and terrible management. Now, with costs going through the roof the airline is in some serious financial trouble.
Through the course of the summer, Alitalia has been looking for ways out of it’s tangle. For a while, we thought that Air France and KLM, the French and Dutch Skyteam partners, were going to usurp their counterparts, until unions and politicians weighed in on the deal and the buyers decided to back out.
Since then, the Italian government has been arguing about a few different options including a government takeover, but none have really matured to the point of stability.
Which brings us to Monday morning, which, after months of squabbling and mismanagement, has led to the airline still without strong leadership, with angry unions and with not enough fuel to fill its airplanes. According to the BBC, unless the airline comes up with some some significant cash or a strategy today, they “cannot guarantee” flights into the week.
As of this morning the airline is still in talks to be taken over by a Italian consortium of companies (including Benetton?) and merge with AirOne with plans to cut over 3,000 jobs, but nothing has been finalized. Keep an eye on your Alitalia flight if you’ve got one booked in the next week. It could be a rough week.
Flying-AIt’s official:
Pentagon Postpones $35B Air Force Tanker Competition Until 2009
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Fox News
The U.S. Defense Department said Wednesday that it will wait until the next administration to award a disputed $35 billion contract to build a new fleet of aerial refueling tankers.
The Pentagon canceled the latest round of bidding between Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. for the 179 planes, and now plans to hold a new competition next year.
Northrop and its partner, European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., the parent company of Airbus, won the contract earlier this year, but the competition was reopened after the Government Accountability Office found fault with the decision-making process.
“Over the past seven years the process has become enormously complex and emotional — in no small part because of mistakes and missteps along the way by the Department of Defense,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a statement. “It is my judgment that in the time remaining to us, we can no longer complete a competition that would be viewed as fair and objective in this highly charged environment.”
Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., whose congressional district is home to the Boeing Everett factory, called the decision “great news for Boeing’s workers.”
But Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Ala., said he is “outraged” by the Pentagon’s decision to punt the tanker decision. Bonner’s district in southern Alabama would have stood to gain from the Defense Department’s original awarding of the contract to European-based EADS over Boeing.
“I am, frankly, embarrassed for the DoD leadership. They have an urgent military need yet are simply giving up efforts to address that need. It is a very sad comment when our nation is engaged in two wars — in two different regions of the world — that DoD would abdicate its responsibility,” Bonner said.
In August, new leaders of the Air Force acknowledged that the service lost its focus and must work to mend fences after a slew of contracting and nuclear-related missteps.
Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz, the new Air Force chief of staff, told Pentagon reporters that he plans to use the reinstatement of about 14,000 jobs in the service to bolster its nuclear staffing and beef up intelligence and surveillance.
“I think the bottom line is we lost focus. We did. And that focus is coming back,” said Schwartz, who was formally sworn in during a ceremony Tuesday morning. “I think fundamentally our service is sound. It doesn’t mean we’re perfect, and we certainly have work to do, things to fix, fences to mend.”
This came after Gates fired the former Air Force secretary and chief of staff in June, blaming them for failing to address fully a series of nuclear-related mishaps.
His decisions were triggered largely by two major nuclear-related blunders by the Air Force. The first was the mistaken shipment to Taiwan of four electrical fuses for ballistic missile warheads. Then last August, an Air Force B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La. At the time, the pilot and crew were unaware they had nuclear arms aboard.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Flying-AThe Cinerama B-25. UFOs outrun everything, so you might as well get a good shot of it zooming away.
Flying-ASince the early days of commercial aviation, the tail has generally been considered the safest part of a plane in a crash, but here is an exception:
Madrid air crash stewardess survived by ‘switching seats’
The sole crew member to survive last week’s Madrid air crash has revealed how her life was spared by a last-minute decision to switch her seat from the back of the plane to the front.
Telegraph (London)
By Fiona Govan and Ed Owen in Madrid
Last Updated: 11:22PM BST 23 Aug 2008
Antonia Martinez Jimenez, 27, has told relatives that she normally sat at the back of the plane during take-off and landing, but on the ill-fated flight to Gran Canaria last Wednesday she was rostered to sit up front in seat 1E.
All the other 17 survivors of the crash were sitting in the rows around her, and when the plane broke apart on impact, most were propelled out of the wreckage and away from the subsequent explosion that engulfed it. In a further stroke of good fortune, they landed in a stream where the water shielded them from the blistering heat as a massive fuel fire scorched the area.
“I heard some people calling for help, but I couldn’t do anything,” said Ms Martinez Jimenez, who was still strapped her chair when she landed in the stream. “A few minutes later I heard the sirens and thought ‘I am saved’.”
Speaking from the hospital bed where she she is being treated for broken bones and facial burns, Ms Martinez Jimenez added that she had no proper recollections of the moments leading up to the crash. However, she added: “I will never fly again – it was horrible, horrible.”
The death toll from the crash climbed to 154 on Saturday after a woman who suffered severe burns in the accident died from her injuries, health official said.
Maria Luisa Estevez Gonzalez, 31, passed away at Madrid’s La Paz hospital where she was being treated for burns to 72 percent of her body.
Ms Martinez Jimenez is being treated in Madrid’s La Princesa hospital for fractured vertebrae, a broken elbow and a bruised sternum, as well as serious burns to her face, although doctors say she should be able to make a full recovery.
Her parents had been sitting down to lunch when they saw on the television news that a plane had crashed at Barajas airport, and had initially assumed their daughter was dead.
“We thought the worst,” recalled her father, Dionisio. “She had called less than 10 minutes before to say the plane was about to depart.”
Her mobile phone line also went dead, but a few agonising hours later her parents received a call from hospital staff who said their daughter had survived. The phone was passed to her and in a barely audible voice she told them: “Mummy, don’t worry I’m alive.”
Ms Martinez Jimenez has not yet been told the grim news that all her colleagues among the 10 member crew have been killed. Investigators hope that her short-term amnesia may eventually lift and that she will be able to shed light on what happened immediately before the accident
Another survivor described the horrifying moments just after take-off when the plane lost power and plummeted to the ground.
“Everything went very fast, a strange shaking sensation as plane tossed up and down and left to right,” said bank clerk Beatriz Ojeda Reyes, 41. “I remember tightening my seat belt and the next thing I found myself in a shallow creek.” Having suffered an injured leg, she administered a tourniquet and then pulled herself from the wreckage, dragging a small boy to safety at the same time.
The survivors’ accounts of the crash emerged as some 200 families and friends of victims held a heated meeting with executives from airline Spainair on Friday evening. At one point scuffles broke out, with relatives claiming that some victims had been denied requests to leave the plane after it failed a first-take off attempt.
One shouted out: “We have messages showing there was a sort of meeting or discussion on board to stop the flight from leaving.”
Another added: “There was negligence. We have witnesses. Many of us received calls from our relatives or messages saying something strange was happening.”
Relatives, who have been offered Red Cross grief counsellors, also criticised airline executives for providing an emergency telephone number that did not work and refusing to answer questions as to the cause of the crash.
“We don’t want psychologists, we want a technical expert to tell us what happened to our loved ones,” said one Spaniard who had lost two children and a grandson.
Meanwhile, the small mountainside town of San Bartolomé in Gran Canaria was due to hold a funeral for 13 victims of the crash late on Saturday afternoon, also cancelling an annual fiesta which was due to take place today.
“It has been the worst ever catastrophe for the Canaries and especially for this small town,” said Gabriel Suarez, a Gran Canaria resident.
“Normally this Sunday everyone joins in the fun and many families and former residents return to enjoy dancing in the streets, lots of music, games, competitions, traditional dress, drinks and lots of food. That’s all cancelled.”
A sports hall in the town was requisitioned to hold the coffins in until the funeral mass began. Among the dead was Laudencio GarcÃa, 51, the headmaster for 15 years at a local primary school and a local councillor, who perished with his wife, Lucrecia Hernández, 52, also a teacher, and their two children, Elena, 16, and Carlos, 14.
“They were both enormously respected and kind, “said Mr Suarez, “They must have educated about 3,000 local children over the years.”
Flying-AThey should throw the book at the perp since this is far from “boys will be boys” kids stuff. Elsewhere there is a thread concerning the identification of remains from the 1948 gold plane crash in Alaska. Published reports state that the cause was never definitely established, but that one theory is that the pilots were blinded or distracted by an unusually bright aurora display the night of the crash.
Flying-AThe same — I overlooked the earlier thread.
Flying-AAs soon as I saw the title of this thread, I thought of the Breezy! It’s something that just sticks in the mind.
Don’t forget the Beecraft Wee Bee:
Flying-AAfter bitter house to house fighting, Schweinfurt was captured late in the war by the U.S. Army’s 42nd Infantry Division (“The Rainbow Division”). A large Nazi flag was found flying over the Kugelfischer factory. Aware of the heavy losses suffered by the 8th Air Force, especially the 305th BG, the banner was presented to that group by the 42nd. A photo of that ceremony:
I believe that it’s now in the National Museum of the USAF.
Flying-AI suspect the explosive growth of 50-seat regional jets such as CRJ200 and ERJ145 in the 1990’s and early this decade accounts for the 19-seat J31’s decline.
Following a rash of commuter airliner crashes about 15-20 years ago, such as the one that killed former Senator John Tower and his daughter and the ATR icing crashes, there were news reports that some US operators were switching to jets because of a public perception that turboprops were prone to crashes.
With the price of fuel at the moment, quite a few airlines are finding that turboprop aircraft make better financial sense than the smaller jet commuter types.
They say that OPEC’s price runup about 35 years ago added a decade to the careers of some Valiants, Electras, and DC-6Bs.
Flying-AGreat looking model that proves the axiom that “if it looks right, it flies right.”
I’m slowing reentering the hobby of flying models myself, but with electric power. Glow engines have always hated me and I hate them back!
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