Wasn’t there a US program to develop a vary large transport based on an airship?

Lockheed have a prototype if that’s the correct terminology

Link Here

I think there is Video on the internet as well.

Agree with the first paragraph entirely. As you’ve said, the Merlin is a good direct Seaking replacement, so why not replace the SAR Seakings with Merlins too? If we are going to order a Puma replacement, I think the AW149 is good, but i don’t think we should get more AW139’s for any role unless they are significantly cheaper otherwise we are just going back a generation for little reason.

The Coast Guard is a civilian organisation that uses private contractors to operate it’s fleet of helicopters. There currently isn’t such an operator in the UK with Merlin experience.
If the Coast Guard was to take over the full SAR coverage of the UK, then not only would they need to find pilots, but also get them all trained (at what cost) to the Merlin.

Out of curiosity anyone have any ideas of the numbers of aircraft actually being referred to here?

RAF Pumas
RM Sea kings

And what split between Merlin/AW149/AnOther would likely make up the replacements. As much as I’d like to see 1:1 financially I can’t see it happening even though the need is very clear.

The MOD suggests a total of 62 FLynx/Wildcat/AW159 split between Army and Navy.

Should that number be increased as a part measure to the medium lift requirement as well?

Non RAF shows which that have RAF content include….

Perth this weekend featuring the Red Arrows and a Typhon Display
Perth Airshow

East Fortune/National Museum of Flight (near Haddington) 25th July has the BBMF (Spit, Hurri and Dak), RAF Hawk and Chinook
East Fortune

This might be more for the webmaster than a Mod.

Could it be an idea to do as another vBulletin forum site that I visit do, and include the sub forums on the front of the forum page, like in the attached image below.

The photographic thread could have Tutorial, Airline and Airshow as sub forums showing.

Similarly with Military with it’s Missile and Naval Aviation sub forums; Commercial with the Trip reports; and Flight Sim with the RC & Models and Screen shots subforums.

That way the casual viewer the to forum front page will see where everything is and possibly see something they might otherwise have not known was covered by this site.
And to members the sub forums would be highlighted to show that there is new content since their last visit.

I thnkk this would take away some of the comments about the airline photos being lost once away from the Commercial section.

Been at work all this evening, not long home. Heard it on the radio during the drive back.

Absolutely astonishing, superb flying and landing by the pilots. Also well done to the Cabin crew on the evacuation as well.

I don’t want to be rude, but shouldn’t a pilot make sure his jet will crash out of an inhabited area before bailing out?

That’s if his plane is still controllablel though.

Nic

The CNN report above makes mention of the University City Highschool being close to the crash site. That makes it about 2-2.5 miles off the end of the longest runway at Mirimar.

I don’t want to speculate on causes but that information alone suggests something on take off or finals (possibly with a problem). Neither of which would leave the pilot many options for finding anywhere clear to point the aircraft.

There could be more delays ahead

BBC Scotland News