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cooperplace

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Everything posted by cooperplace

  1. It's great to see about the Typhoon. A relative, now passed on, flew over 100 missions in them in 181 squadron. He once told me about attacking tanks: "in the Hurricane you could see the bullets bouncing off tanks, but with the Typhoon, it didn't matter what it was, a rocket made a real mess of it". On their accuracy he said if you got in real close and fired all 8, you could usually take out the tank.
    1. Downunder

      Downunder

      The Brits swapped it for another aircraft, so there is officially only one in existence at the moment and none flying.
  2. yes it sounds like an air in the fuel line problem. I like how he got it right on the centre line.
  3. are there fake mikuni pumps around? there are certainly fake mikuni m/cycle carbs.
  4. my father was in Darwin in WW2 and he saw a man's remains being hosed out of the rear turret of a Liberator: result of a cannon shell hit. He said that the poor tail gunner often copped it. Aircrew were brave men.
  5. I just looked up the record of my relative who flew Hurricanes as night fighters for 18 months then Typhoons, (181 and 247 squadrons) then was shot down over Munster, March 1945, force marched the length of Germany, and survived, dying a couple of years ago aged 93. A comment in his record from his S/L, RJ McNair: "His untidy general appearance is more than offset by his operational knowledge which has been of great value". His record lists his training in "low attack and rocket, Milfield, England, Hurricane VI, 17 hours" There's an entry 13/3/45: "missing"; he said he was very lucky to be shot down during the day, as he'd previously been a night fighter for 18 months. He made a forced landing, obviously impossible at night. They were amazing guys.
  6. I've flown a tecnam P2002 all of once. Low wing, Rotax engine. Lovely aircraft, IMO. Others here will know much more about them. Pricey.
  7. Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K Gann is a great read.
  8. unfortunately this means a large number of families that lost a loved one and would never recover. Just the other day my MIL was talking about her uncle who was WW2 aircrew who never came back; talking about him still brings sadness.
  9. surely the hero pilot was merely steering the stricken craft away from a school?
  10. it's prompted me to start saving my pennies for a spitfire flight: 30 minutes for <3000 pounds. No problem. I just need to justify it to the minister.
  11. when I go on holiday I like to go for a flight and see the area from the air. I was in San Fran over xmas and called Advantage Aviation at Palo Alto re flying a 152. They were great, and instructor David Schneider took me up. San Fran itself was shrouded in fog, with only the needle-like tip of the TransAmerica Pyramid showing, so we flew to Half Moon Bay and did a touch and go. I'd never flown a Cessna before, or any aircraft with a yoke, so that was interesting. It's extremely busy airspace, with about 200k movements/year at Palo Alto and it's near San Jose Int'l as well as SFO and a heap of other fields. Plus there are noise abatement procedures that include strict altitude limits. Quite a change from YMBD where I usually fly. After flying a LSA/55 jab, the 152 seemed easy to land. The cost was reasonable: the 152 was US$99/hr inc. fuel, and David charged $70. If you're in San Fran I recommend this outfit.
  12. first time I flew into Africa, the plane landed in Luanda and the runway was lined with crashed planes, about 6 on each side! Quite sobering. This was in 1994. They've cleaned them up now, obviously worried about the poor first impression.
  13. bits of crashed planes? Put there to remind students to pay attention?
  14. yes, it's only a matter of time until someone ends up this way.
  15. Good to hear that he's physically fine. Mentally I think he can congratulate himself on a good outcome: it could have been a lot worse.
  16. hmmm I wonder if I can do that in the jab at YMBD?
  17. from where I live I've just spotted some 737s on descent into Adelaide, and sometimes there's an airbus, or a 777, does that count?
  18. getting back to the original topic, has anyone heard how the pilot is going?
  19. I'm with Bexr-B on this. As long as the pilot is OK, humor is fine.
  20. was chatting to the father of my daughter's friend, complaining about how noisy some aircraft are, and he casually commented that you miss the noise when all engines stop. Turns out he was a business class passenger on BA9 on June 24th 1982. He made some interesting observations: he could see smoke coming from the flight deck and worried there was an electrical fire, was relieved this wasn't so; said that it glided for 20 minutes and they were lucky the engines restarted "we couldn't glide much longer". Very unimpressed with Indonesian ATC who took forever to appreciate the situation. The pilot had a quarter-inch wide strip of windscreen he could see through which made landing tricky. He had complete faith in the crew "obviously they knew what they were doing". He didn't hear any of Moody's famous announcements. He's a very calm person and is unruffled by it all.
  21. I've never yet done a gear-up landing in the jab and I don't intend to.
  22. it says "ATSB has been notified", I won't hold my breath for a report.
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