The plane enthusiasts thread

[Spinney]

Saw this one day from school :

Turned out to be this.

 

[Spinney]

I like sitting near the window watching the wings waving up and down gently, and thinking to myself that people like me had a hand in designing this...

 

[donnydave]

I like sitting near the window watching the wings waving up and down gently, and thinking to myself that people like me had a hand in designing this...

Have you ever sat right at the back on an aisle seat of something fairly big (i.e twin aisle) and before they draw the curtains you can see all the way down the plane, look at the line of the overhead lockers and see the whole length of the fuselage bending

I also like to watch the wing tips wobbling around, makes me remember the various wing bending test videos around, there was one for the 787 where the wings got to something like 40° before they finally gave up. I like to listen to peoples stories of turbulence who describe how the plane was being shaken to pieces etc etc, imagining the pilots bravely wrestling with the controls when in actual fact all that's happened in the cockpit is the pilot has asked a stewardess for a napkin as he's spilled his orange juice . I've given up explaining that nose wheel imbalance/fan blade out is waaaaaaaaayyy worse than any turbulence, in fact I've all but given up explaining my job, I just say "engineer" and that's enough for most people

 

[Spinney]

Have you ever sat right at the back on an aisle seat of something fairly big (i.e twin aisle) and before they draw the curtains you can see all the way down the plane, look at the line of the overhead lockers and see the whole length of the fuselage bending

No, but on a slightly different subject I have sat in one of the front seats on a flight into Lukla, where you can lean sideways a bit and see right through the cockpit windows at the wall of rock the plane is heading for...


(best bit from 1 minute)

And take-off are quite exciting too (ye, the runway really does slope like that)

 

[donnydave]

'kinell!

 

[Spinney]

'kinell!

Yeah, that's what I thought at the time!
We had several hours to kill in Lukla when we arrived, sat at a tea house watching the planes come and go.
Sadly, people do get killed now and then flying into there.

 

[DaveReading]

It was an RAF Jaguar that got shot down by an RAF Phantom over Germany in 1983

The Jaguar pilot in question had a charmed life. Following that incident (actually in May 1982), he ejected again 5 months later from another Jaguar which suffered an engine fire over northern Scotland.

One of the few bits that was retrieved from the peat bog where it crashed:

Placard, presented by 14 Sqn ground crew, reads "Sorry, Boss, this was one we could not fix".

 

[Gravity Aided]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g63nWQlHfkM


Lots of Vampires and Meteors and other fine entertainments.

 

[classic33]

Eric Melrose Brown

"In a career that spanned an era from biplanes to the threshold of spaceflight, Captain Brown, by his own accounts and Royal Navy records, flew 487 distinct types of aircraft, more than any pilot in history, and set a world record of 2,407 landings on aircraft carriers, including the first by a jet plane."

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Helluva guy. RIP

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

A must see, repeated this Friday at 7pm

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LEe5ul37Q7g

 

[Illaveago]

I think that there is an exercise going on on Salisbury plain! I have just seen an Apache followed by a Blackhawk. A couple of minutes later a Chinook followed by an Osprey all going in the same direction.

 

[Illaveago]

Helluva guy. RIP

I didn't know he had just died. My wife and I were watching his documentary the other day and were saying why didn't he get a Knighthood for all that he had done.

 

[Illaveago]

This time I managed to catch them but this time it was 2 Ospreys!

 

[beastie]

Which island is it, where the planes land on the beach?

Barra.

View: http://youtu.be/mIIHJdnsASA