I've met a few pilots that flew in Papua New Guinea. By all reports it's meant to be the best flying in the world, absolutely stunningly beautiful and challenging: but it isn't worth living in PNG. It's an absolute crime infested ****hole.

A friend of mine is a flight instructor for Alaska Airlines. He started out flying puddlejumpers all over Alaska, but he did it for the fun, not just the hours.

Pretty cool short takeoff test.



Don't think that I've seen the flap behind the canopy before.

https://www.f35.com/news/detail/f35b...eapons-testing

Hey W0X0F,

Couple weeks ago I got back from a 10-month cruise, all in the Middle East save for the obvious transit both ways. We are an East Coast squadron that deploys on a West Coast carrier, so we had to make the cross coast trip to get home. We got Omega support and they dragged all 12 F18s across country (normally 3 stops) via some expert communication between 3 of them. Really awesome experience and quite 'Merca inducing.

Anyway. Along the way quite a few ATC bubba a were aware that we were RTB from the fight and were extremely thankful and awesome. That didn't surprise me. But a couple times some comm air guys would switch over to the uniform freq (I'm sure you know we don't favor victor) just to say thank you or welcome back or w/e.

I was curious if you guys have a phone book type of thing that gets you to U frees? Just seemed odd that everybody so quickly sqitched over to say hi.

PP,

That "flap" is an intake. The only friends I have that fly the unicorn fly the Navy variant, but I know a bit about the MC version and I'm fairly certain about that. Bra we can start a whole 'nother talk about the acquisition process and how it got all whacky!

I'm not sure what you mean by "comm air guys", but I'm guessing you mean airlines. I really have no idea how these guys knew your UHF frequency and, btw, I've never flown a plane that has UHF radios, so that would be a problem too.

But I have a question about your deployment. Are you saying you guys flew across the U.S. to join your ship, and then back across the U.S. when you returned? Wouldn't it be easier/quicker/more efficient to join and depart the boat somewhere closer to your base?

Comm air meaning commercial air.

My squadron belongs to an Air Wing and ship combo that resides in Lemoore and San Diego respectively, so we have to travel. It's fairly uncommon, I think there's only one or two other squadrons that have a similar situation.

And no, it wouldn't be efficient to stop on the East Coast on the way to the Middle East from the West Coast.

I misunderstood. For some reason, I thought you were based on the east coast and flew across the country to goo aboard the ship.

I am. VA Beach. The ship is based out of San Diego and the rest of the Air Wing is in Lenoore, CA. Well the helos are in San Diego too.

thanks

That is cool. I haven't been following the F-35 saga at all, but came across this article just now: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/tes...ht-cdb9d11a875

Seems this plane has some massive problems, especially considering the investment.

EDIT: I found another article on Medium which explains the problem with the F-35 is exactly the cool feature shown in the video:

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-...e-5c95d45f86a5

Speaking of take-offs (and assuming this didn't make an appearance earlier in the thread), fancy flying a Dreamliner to do this?

That is both some impressive flying and camera work.

Found an interesting article "Hail pummels Delta 747 over China"

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincitie...html?ana=yahoo

According to the article the Delta flight was forced to fly through the storm because Chinese ATC would not grant permission for them to deviate.

WOXOF. What would you say a pilot can do in such a situation given the control the Chinese military has over their airspace. Could a pilot ignore ATC in a situation they might deem dangerous or would they have to just stay on course regardless?

sopoRific's answer to this was spot on, particularly this part:

In the scenario you describe, it would be standard for the controller to issue a heading change to the conflicting traffic to try to keep it separated from the emergency aircraft's path. But perhaps there wasn't time for this, and if I'm flying the emergency aircraft, I want to know about possible conflicts and I would comply with the controller's request if I'm able to.

That video about flying in PNG reminded me of a place in Virginia that I've flown in to a few times many years ago. It's not even close to the types of high altitude, short fields in PNG, but Hot Springs, VA has an airport on top of a mountain ridge. Standing by the runways, it looks pretty dramatic, with the ground just dropping away in all directions.

The drop-off at the ends of the runway can create some interesting downdrafts. Back in 1976, Johnson & Johnson's Gulfstream crashed at this airport, killing many of their top executives.

From the NTSB report:

a The appearance of a vertical climb is a trick of perspective. We normally climb out at about 20° nose up initially, lowering the nose significantly, to maybe 10°, at about 1000' agl. I've seen lightly loaded planes climb at a much greater angle right after takeoff though.

I remember long ago watching a TWA 747 doing touch and goes at Dulles Airport. Dulles was almost unused back in the early 70s and TWA would fly down from New York for practice landings. (This was before simulators took over all this kind of flight training; back then much of the training took place in the plane itself.) With only several crew members on board, and a light fuel load, that plane would achieve a deck angle of what looked to me like 45° when it went around. I'm sure it wasn't actually that high, but it was a dramatic climb.

Here's a good article on the Dreamliner takeoff, titled Sorry, Your Next 787 Dreamliner Flight Won't Include A Vertical Take-Off. The pilot quoted in the article, Patrick Smith, is a guy I've flown with before (did a trip to São Paulo with him).

That's a very interesting question. It's acknowledged worldwide that the Pilot-in-Command has emergency authority to do whatever is necessary for safety of flight. But there are real-world considerations too. I've flown to Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport about a dozen times and our company publications have very strict guidelines on airspace to avoid if a go-around becomes necessary.

In this situation, I can't imagine that exercising command authority to avoid severe weather would result in anything too serious, or create an international incident. But...you never know. Remember when KAL 007, a civilian 747, was shot down for straying into Soviet airspace? Those were different times, and I'd like to think that no country wants a civilian plane to encounter this kind of weather.

btw, that hail is one reason we give all storms a wide berth. Given a choice, we will pass a storm on the upwind side, or at least 20 miles away on the downwind side. You can encounter hail even flying in clear air if you're too close to a mature cell. In the late 90s, when I was at ACA, we had a CRJ damaged by hail while in clear air. The hail was being ejected from the top of a mature storm miles to the west of their flight path.

Sounds like Chuck Yeager Airport in West Virginia, too. On approach all you see are hills (as a passenger obviously) and just when you think you're about to slam into one the runway appears beneath you.

Ever flown in there?

I landed there many times when I flew the J32 for ACA. I had Senator Byrd (D-WV) on my flight once going there. The terrain fell away dramatically at the ends of the main runway (5/23), and also just off the right side of the taxiway as you headed out to runway 23. It's a beautiful area.

Maybe not exactly within the scope of this thread, but I am looking to book a flight to Kenya.

Ideally departing on the 22nd/23rd of this month and coming back on the 31st/1st. Both sets of dates are fairly rigid.

I've scanned most of the online tips and tricks sites, but how soon should I book this ticket without prices skyrocketing? Obviously trying to maximize value.

I've used this site for this before, it's basically crowdsourcing your question and you award the best answer a small fee:
https://flightfox.com/

I flew into there last year because I heard it was the highest elevation airport in the eastern US and that just sounded like a place I needed to visit. It does look pretty awesome on both sides of the runway. Here's a picture I took on takeoff that shows it a little better, but it's still nothing like seeing it in person:



There was a half mile drag racing event there a few months ago featuring some very powerful cars. Seems crazy to drive a car straight towards a cliff like that at 150+ mph but nobody ran off the edge.

NTSB companion video to their report on the UPS 1354 cash at BHM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsr8C9fsYjo

Focus on crew communication.

First of all, it rocks that this thread is still going strong, I've stepped away from 2p2 for a few years and come back and nothing has changed

I can so relate to this, I am a systems analyst for a law firm and I often question my sanity and quality of worklife. I just took a vacation to Richmond Virginia, great city, have you flown a lot out of Richmond Intl? is each flight still intriguing and eventful or is it just like a walk in the park everytime you take off? Is each airport different, do you prefer certain airports over others? What is your take on Jetblue? I think they are a great airline, and approx how was is your average commercial jet flying down the runway before takeoff? Thanks Cap'n!