willedoo

Looks like one of AirMed's Chieftians.

A Greek F-4 Phantom has crashed in the sea on a training mission. One crew member found dead and the other missing.

https://greekcitytimes.com/2023/01/30/phantom-f-4-crashed-andravida/?fbclid=IwAR10bbFoXgal6wkfY5g8s4oT7dbrvZx_O87nS78jHqy2P0f6F62Ff7CC5jg.

47 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

destroying that antonov was to me one of the worst crimes imaginable. And so stupid....  it  would have sat there unflown and only if it was used by the military would there be any excuse.

I recommend confiscating oligarch's money as reparations.

Bruce, as an edit, even though all the timeline and video evidence of the battle that I've seen points to Ukrainian artillery causing the An-225 fire, I blame Russia 100% for it's demise. If they'd stayed home, the 225 would be still flying. It would be good to see the second partial 225 fly one day, if it ever happens.

4 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

destroying that antonov was to me one of the worst crimes imaginable. And so stupid....  it  would have sat there unflown and only if it was used by the military would there be any excuse.

I recommend confiscating oligarch's money as reparations.

Unfortunately the An-225 was collateral damage. If the Ukrainian artillery hadn't blasted the Russians out of the airport, the Russians would have held it and flown in troops and heavy equipment, giving them a good chance at their goal of taking Kiev. The battle for Hostomel airport might well have determined the entire outcome of the war. The Ukrainian artillery most likely destroyed it, going by the timelines of the battle and all the video evidence; the 225 was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

2 hours ago, old man emu said:

I agree. It is impossible to interpret what the passenger meant. Fortunately, I think that he is alive to ask.

It looks like the passenger wouldn't have had time to do much else. He notices the other chopper and is pointing to it, probably to another passenger. The pilot has a headset on, so wouldn't have heard him. Then the passenger taps him on the right shoulder which diverts the pilots vision in the opposite direction of the approaching second helicopter. It would have happened quickly.

Unfortunately, passengers can sometimes be hesitant to point out a potential problem or question a pilot. I know of one charter flight accident where the pilot forgot to put the gear down. A couple of the blokes in the back noticed the landing gear lights weren't right and were indecisive about telling the pilot. They assumed it was a minor fault with the lights that the pilot knew about. The end result, the pilot died and the front seat passenger was severely injured and brain damaged for life. If the passengers had alerted the pilot, it would have been avoidable. That particular incident was a company charter where there was a pre existing level of familiarity between passengers and pilot. For passengers on a flight with a totally unknown pilot, it could be even a bit more intimidating to speak up. By intimidating, I mean the old layman/professional thing, where the passengers don't feel it's their place to speak up.

The site is working again, thanks Ian.

16 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Same, and when I disable javascript (on Firefox 104.0.1 (64 bit), the connection to socialaustralia.com.au times out.

 

@willedoo - am reading your posts to socialaus; appreviate them but can't respond either way...  so here's a 👍 for them.

There might be a difference there with versions. I've got Firefox 100.0.1 and haven't had a problem with it timing out. It's easy enough for me as I have an add on Javascript switcher on the toolbar, so I can click a widget instead of going into settings to disable Javacript. It's handy for accessing some paywalled sites.

If you need to post in Social Australia, you can do so if you disable Javascript in your browser. That allows the posting text box to appear to post text only. Posting photos and quotes doesn't work.

Soviets did the same thing during their Afghan war. The Il-76's would do a steep approach and bank 45+ degrees.

Deleting an accidental double post.

I'd like to be able to add something positive to the debate, but where do you start; there's so many variables.

Some points for starters:

1. Who do we identify as threats or potential enemies?

2. What type of threat would we encounter - a traditional attempted invasion or a more modern form of hybrid warfare? Or more likely, a combination of both. Hybrid examples could be blockading sea lanes to starve us of supplies and fuel. Cyber warfare to immobilize our electricity grid and defences, or even knocking out our satellites.

If we figured out the above and focused on one thing, ie: defending the country, then we would have a chance of doing something right and building a decent defence system. Or do we stick with the theory that we can never unilaterally defend ourselves. That would mean sticking with the status quo of the U.S. alliance and designing our military to follow a coalition around the world on never ending adventures.

The point is, are we militarily and economically too weak to adopt an isolationist stance. I'd say we are and have long ago boxed ourselves into the U.S. corner with no practical way to break out. That means buying more useless equipment and tagging along on their adventures, with the carrot on the stick being that they will hopefully help defend us if necessary. It has a big bearing on the type of military equipment we acquire.

Right up into the jet age the accident rates were confronting on some aircraft types. The USAF lost 889 F-100 Super Sabres to accidents, killing 324 pilots.

Did you know that a major feature of the much hyped U.S. Combat Edge System introduced in 1996 was developed by the Soviets and has been in use with Russian fighter jets since 1956. It took the Americans 40 years to copy the Russian occipital bladder helmet/mask tensioning system. Better late than never. 😮

Exactly, onetrack. The bang seats help but it's the training that saves lives. Stick to your training and you have a good chance of surviving. Spend time debating the issue and you die. It's that simple.

Willie, here is a trailer from Peter Jacksons movie.

Thanks Peter, I haven't seen it as yet. I see it's available on DVD so I'll buy a copy.

These Smithsonian photos haven't been colourised; they are original colour photographs that the museum has recently scanned to digital format. The colourisation of B&W photos is great. It can add extra clarity to the originals. It must be good software to colour film footage.

The National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution are digitalising their stock of colour photos from WW2. A lot of aviation history there. The attached photo shows two Marine Corsair F-4U's burning after a collision in the Solomons.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/airandspace/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10157308006737797&__xts__[0]=68.ARA8XSL5ddnkvLBk9LLjYZb8Qcrpo96ufyCcc4sGDtlULcfm61KlVvNikn7LAHggsEx9nymK90P2J-L74ZkAlSKQkO953NLz9HyMZjE582AP11AhiPPN2-WpxfN8pWZ0s5Q5rJqRrAGX-4I-KNu8vkZbfFk5nVmyl0CoZd-p5PIKvmiKpnRoR4e41gy-XbMl1U52K7B9YYaDW9DkUIDtaQfPFuFurL7ekxWtUIKu8-mlAaDTGZ9_g33mq4j9UKRU0PK6n4QnBThu3d9vpVfOG_8u-MluzSlyftxaPRVKhXbHS8toc4s37JkhoOAIIAOjk-pE4e6RqJpamt6gttvRbO0O4Jhg6Xhb4Btz6yekjpJUl3DS_bqmspHS_D2pVXh-Y4-wykiFn9s-G5MslY2x15Lwd2MlIStP8gnfFCY04tihq39Xvq5n8VheCXiX&__tn__=-UC-R

I wonder if there was a control failure, due to over-enthusiastic movements of the controls?

Maybe another possibility is that his harness wasn't tightened enough and when he went inverted, he's lost control or accidentally caused the wrong control input right at that critical moment.

That HDD space is just the start from what I saw of the reviews. It requires a fast internet connection to download the GBs of scenery which it apparently will do 'on the fly'.

The connection speed would cut me out of the picture. I think you only get a certain number of airports with the programme and a lot has to be streamed live.

I've discovered over the years women and aviation don't mix

After meeting up with these two, a couple of dozen Germans would have agreed with that. ☹

(is there only one of them?)

Only one flying; a second one was part built and mothballed. I'd bet the Russians are kicking themselves that they didn't keep the Antonov Design Bureau in Russia.

I don't normally collect undies, but I recently acquired a set of these PZh-1 piddle pants. They were originally introduced in the mid 90's for the MiG-31 pilots but weren't taken up in a big way. Zvezda has reintroduced them as part of the equipment set for the Su-57, so with the combination of aerial refueling and OBOGS, they will have long range capability without the discomfort of the pilots having to undo everything mid flight to use the old canister type.

Although these shorts don't look overly comfortable having to spend the flight with the little pilot residing in that contraption with the vacuum hoses. And yes, they are new straight out of the packet, not second hand.

I have a short concentration span, flitting from one project to another. While this means my bedside table has half a dozen books I'm part way thru, our place is littered with not-quite-finished stone walls, partly-repaired items and SWMBO has a queue of jobs for me; it also enriches my existence.

Welcome to the club, Old Koreelah; I thought I was the only one.

change.org petition to save Bruntingthorpe. Time is rapidly running out.

Sign the Petition

Haven't done it for a while but wouldn't mind getting back into it. I think a new computer would have to be first on the list. Then retire the old FS9 and try a newer sim.

A bloke I know in the U.K. has been playing around with some old aircraft instruments, trying to get them to work with the flight sim programme. So far he's had an EGT gauge work as well as a gear indicator. He uses the open source Flightgear sim and in the case of the EGT gauge, has hacked the code to output the Jet Pipe Temperature over USB. An Arduino board is connected to the laptop by USB and reads the temperature data. It then uses this to directly drive the indicator using pulse width modulation.

Interesting stuff but I recon he will be about 130 years old by the time he gets a complete panel of real gauges working. He's not gutting and modifying the gauges, just trying to work out ways to make original gauges work.