willedoo

Interesting link, thanks Peter. Shame it never got a chance to go into service, certainly an opening for it at that time. The third jetliner to fly, the French Sud Caravelle seems to have been a bit slow off the mark, taking four years to reach certification. The fourth to fly, the Tupolev Tu-104, beat the Sud into service by almost three years. With all the problems of the Comet, there would surely have been a market for the C-102. Cheers, Willie.

Yes, Dave, it's some of the nicest tail art I've seen, simple but very effective. I wonder if they'll keep it on for the rest of the year. Will be looking forward to seeing photos or video of the event. Cheers, Willie.

Slideshow of A380 construction photos: http://www.aex.ru/multimedia/15/ Cheers, Willie.

Link to a photo of some nice tail art on a Tornado GR4 to celebrate the centenary of RAF 11(AC) Squadron in May. Two other squadrons are also celebrating centenarys on the same weekend. Clicking the thumbnail expands the photo. Cheers, Willie. http://www.key.aero/view_news.asp?ID=4999&thisSection=military

Good reading & an interesting perspective. Two pubs is news to me, Kaye. I've been in the general area in recent times, but haven't been to William Creek since the donkey was there. Did a google & it only mentions the pub & campground. I was wondering if someone's built a motel with a bar in it. Or he might have got it mixed up with another town. I've just never heard anyone mention a second pub before this. Cheers, Willie.

Now, that is a handy piece of equipment. Cheers, Willie.

News item with video of Boeing's hydrogen powered Phantom Eye uav performing it's first medium speed taxi test. http://www.key.aero/view_news.asp?ID=4994&thisSection=military

It seems like pioneering all over again, good to see. Here's a link to some better photos of the Morane-Saulnier. The photo at the bottom of the link has a good view of the spider-web of wire stays. http://wio.ru/ww1a/gal1.htm Cheers, Willie.

An Su manual I was reading made reference to Nesterov's Loop & how to do it in an Su-27, so I just thought I'd post a couple of links about Pyotr Nesterov, the first pilot to perform a loop in 1913 in a Nieuport IV. He beat French pilot Adolphe Pégoud to it by a few days, however Pégoud was able to claim to be the first fighter ace and the first pilot to parachute from an aeroplane. Legend has it that Pégoud gained some inspiration for aerobatic maneuvers while watching his aircraft fall to the ground as he descended with his parachute. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_P%C3%A9goud Nesterov was also famous for being the first pilot to destroy an enemy aircraft in the air. In 1914, he rammed an Austrian Albatross with his Morane-Saulnier, however, he was not belted in & fell from the plane to his death. The Austrian pilot & observer also died in the crash. http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/military/pyotr-nesterov/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Nesterov Pyotr Nesterov. [ATTACH=full]1048[/ATTACH] Nieuport IV. [ATTACH=full]1049[/ATTACH] Morane-Saulnier Type WR, Russian modification. [ATTACH=full]1050[/ATTACH] The remains of the Austrian Albatross. [ATTACH=full]1051[/ATTACH] Cheers, Willie. [ATTACH]18140[/ATTACH]

Very interesting link, thanks, Peter. Cheers, Willie.

I was thinking it might have something to do with getting it onto the plane via the boat prop & then kicking in the main prop. Reading this, I can see the theory with the hydroplanes standing it up out of the water. Oh well, back to the drawing board. Cheers, Willie.

Looks like a good cross wind would flip it over. Reminds me of that saying about aircraft, "If it's ugly, it's British; if it's weird, it's French; if it's ugly and weird, it's Russian." Although I think you could add the Italians in there somewhere. And it's a bit unfair as the British did build some beautiful looking planes, the Spitfire for example. Cheers, Wilie.

Thanks, Geoff, I've just placed an order for it. Looking forward to a good read, the reviews look interesting. Cheers, Willie.

A bit of a radical concept in it's time, but I suppose no more so than parachuting them out, which is now an accepted norm. Found mention of them here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_A-40 Seems like it glided ok, but slowed the towing aircraft too much. Here's the T60 ,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-60 , lists it as 5.8 tonnes. It doesn't look like very high speed track gear like the modern tanks. I'd imagine there would be a lot of clattering going on. I wonder if they had detachable gear for take off, like a sled with wheels or something that they could drop like drop tanks. Cheers, Willie.

That's good reading, Peter. We sure have come a long way & probably take things for granted a bit nowdays. That Piaggio posted above is an odd one, can't quite figure out how it's meant to work, or maybe it didn't .Looks like the prop would be below the waterline. Cheers, Willie.

It's just a compulsive obsession with turbines, Geoff, ... harmless I'm told. I'd rate them as one of man's greatest inventions, alongside electricity & the potato peeler. That photo of the Lincoln is at the Farnborough airshow, so I'd guess the Merlins are shut down as part of the demonstration. It would be interesting to know their test procedures, I'd always thought they would be running the test engine along with the main engines just to monitor gauges & performance. Maybe flying on the test engine alone is part of the process to check it under load. I've seen photos around the place of four engine a/c having one of the four replaced with a test engine, but this fifth engine nose job is interesting. Cheers, Willie.

That just about takes the cake, Geoff. Certainly some ambitious (or crazy) designers around in those days. It looks like a house of cards. Cheers, Willie.

Link to an article about flying without airspeed indication. Discusses ice issues & the loss of Air France 447 among other things. http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=bca&id=news/bca/2012/03/01/BC_03_01_2012_p34-422240.xml&headline=Flying%20Without%20Airspeed Cheers, Willie.

Did some checking & they are fundamentally different, the Dart a two stage centrifugal compressor & the An2's Ivchenko AI-20 is a ten stage axial flow compressor. The Wiki page (if it's correct) on the AI-20 lists the Rolls Royce Tyne, also axial flow, as a comparable engine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Tyne It looks like the Avro Lincoln flew with one in it's nose as a test bed with all four Merlins shut down. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rolls-Royce_Tyne_Avro_Lincoln_Farnborough_1956.jpg Cheers, Willie.

The way I interpreted that, it seems a handful of them had an incorrectly manufactured longeron which was under spec & this led to a weakening of other bits. So it wasn't an inherent design fault, just an incorrectly manufactured component. Well that's my take on it. Cheers, Willie.

It would be interesting to see if there are any old designs more bizarre than this one. Cheers, Willie.

Good link, thanks Peter. I often wonder if that's why the industry was so prolific in times past, it was good incentive to succeed.The best outcome with failure was life in the nickel mine. He had a different way of doing things, that's for sure. Cheers, Willie.

Would have been a good time to have the camera out. Seems to be a common trait with Russian turbines,whether prop, jet or low by-pass fan, as well as the heavy fuel consumption. The An 12 would have to be the worst of them for soot, I'd guess. Cheers, Willie.

It's a long time ago that I saw that video, & thought it seemed a bit of an embellishment at the tme. Possibly one reason we never went for F15's originally was the cost, but the F35 doesn't seem to be any guarantee of a cheap aircraft, so in comparison, I'd guess the F15's would be more viable now. It will be interesting in the future to see how history judges the attempt to have the western world equipped with a one size fits all, light combat fighter (single engine at that). There's been a lot of hype & spin, but the basic thing driving the JSF project is to reduce long term cost. It seems to be about saving money, rather than developing the most effective system. There's probably more than one better option, if you balance all the requirements. Unfortunately, I'll probably be too old to see it all pan out with the future sixth generaion aircraft, but the next 20 years will be very interesting. Cheers, Willie.

Just wondering if anyone saw, or knows anything about Ukranian registered An12, UR-CAH in Sydney in early December. Belongs to Meridian Air Cargo, of Slovakia & arrived at RAAF Richmond from Christmas Island 1/12/11, Sydney on 2/12/11 & departed for Denpasar, Bali on 3/12/11. http://www.airlinerphotos.com/main.php/2011/bsl/UR-CAH.jpg.html Cheers, Willie.