Plane Tales

Each year upwards of 2 million of the faithful make the journey to follow the path of the profit Muhammad to a number of holy sites before their pilgrimage rites are considered complete. Muslims from around the world make this journey which, in modern times, is often completed using air travel, as it was in 1991 when Nigeria Airways wet leased a Douglas DC8 operated by Nationair Canada to help the...

They were the pioneers who trod the territory beyond the sound barrier… a place no man had ever been before and which had killed many who attempted the journey. The rocket powered, winged bullet first flew only 42 years after man’s first powered flight, an achievement that still astounds me. To think that a toddler around at Kitty Hawk who saw one of the Wright Brothers first flights, could have h...

It’s time for another of my flying logbook tales and it’s May 1987 and I’m on the Australian FA18 No 2 Operational Conversion Unit at RAAF Williamtown starting the final phase on course 1 of 87 before moving onto No 77 Squadron which was to be my home for the next few years.   An FA/18B with a pair of BDU33 practice bomb carriers   The Salt Ash bombing range   A practice bomb...

A tribute to Sherman Smoot, friend of the APG Show, who died doing what he loved best… flying.     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Capt Nick Anderson.        

The First World War battle of the Somme continues, to this day, to fascinate and appal in equal measures. Much has been written about the ground war the first day of which saw the greatest number of British casualties than had occurred before in the entire history of the British Army… 19,240 were dead and 38,230 injured. The fighting over a 16 mile front lasted almost 5 months, after which the All...

Robin Olds was a hard drinking, hard working man who led from the front in a way that inspired his men to become a great fighting force. He only became frustrated when he saw mistakes being made by those above him who should have known better and he went out of his way to make his feelings known. He defined what it meant to be a fighter pilot, not only in the air but on the ground with the stunnin...

A recent news programme caught my eye when I realised it involved our great friends at the Farnborough Aviation Sciences Trust museum. It reminded me of the group of sadistic so-called doctors who populated the Institute of Aviation Medicine and tortured generations of unsuspecting and innocent RAF aircrew in machines such as the one the article featured, a centrifuge! This aforementioned device w...

The story of my military flying career continues with the new challenge of flying the FA/18 Hornet round the beautiful skies of Australia.   The official crest of No 77 Sqn RAAF with its Grumpy Monkey   The 77 Sqn Mirages   The helmet fitting   An FA/18A cockpit     Sunset   The Head Up Display   The location of RAAF Williamtown   Firing the gun  ...

Featured in a Scientific magazine which offered a first look inside the USAF’s new jet fighter, the F-89 Scorpion was to have an interesting history which involved the Battle of Palmdale and a top secret Canadian UFO! A Scientific Magazine cutaway drawing   The Fly-off competitors   The Northrop F89 Scorpion     The 437th Fighter Interceptor Squadron   An F6F Hellcat...

Arguably one of the most talented and innovative aircraft developers of his time, John Knudsen Northrop had long sought an aircraft design that could start a revolution… a craft with minimum drag and a level of lift unachievable in any other form. Jack, as John Northrop was usually known, pursued his dream of building a pure flying wing strategic bomber that would exceed the capabilities of anythi...

It was an unpopular aircraft because, well… a lot of aircrew were superstitious. They were renown for carrying lucky charms, doing things a certain way and never daring to change the habit because it worked for them last time. Their machine was a B17 nicknamed Old 666 taken from the last 3 digits of its tail number 41-2666 and they were the Eager Beavers!   Old 666   The Martin B-26 Mara...

The conclusion of one of the hardest flying courses in the Royal Air Force, the QWI course.  What faced us was the culmination of all our efforts over the past months of flying in the form of a week of intense work, drawing together everything we had learned. We had to fly a series of missions against all comers, demonstrating our level of leadership, control, tactics, formation management, aggres...

The 1920’s and 30’s were times of radical societal changes, particularly in the freedoms that women then demanded. The suffragette movement, the contributions made by women in the first world war and other dramatic events had clearly shown that forward looking women were no longer going to be content with the roles that men decided they were suited for. Aviation played its part in allowing women t...

An air hostess calmly walked through the crashing airliner telling the passengers, “Please fasten your safety-belts. Keep your seats.” Then she returned to the galley near the tail, sat herself down… and waited. One of the passengers had seen oil spurting from an engine and on the flight deck, Captain Anderson was nursing his aircraft in. The engine had failed not long after takeoff following that...

Whilst we are discussing quaint idioms, many of us trust that old American adage, “If it looks good, it’ll fly good” attributed to both Neil Armstrong and Bill Lear and is something that all pilots understand. There is something about a fine looking aircraft that makes it appear trustworthy and gives one confidence that it will perform well. Sadly, I know of one company, however, who seem to have...

The aircraft was named ‘Flagship District of Columbia’ and was only the 12th Boeing 707 ever made. It was delivered to American Airlines in February 1959 so at the time America was taking its first steps into the void of outer space it was a mere 3 years old. It hadn’t long been out of it’s periodic inspection and with less than 8,000 hours on the airframe N7506A was expected to have a long and pr...

The Royal Air Force’s Pilots Flying Logbook is a sturdy publication, cloth bound in blue with gold printing on the cover, on the inside of which are the instructions for use. Para 1, sub para (a) it states that the Book is an official document and is the property of Her Majesty’s Government… well, good luck trying to get this one back! The star of the Top Gun movie   The much admired RAF Phan...

Last week we chatted about historic incidents that led to aircraft upsets. This week we talk to a newly qualified airline pilot who is undergoing advanced Upset and Recovery Training at a British training school. We also speak to the school’s chief pilot and one of the instructors, an ex Mig 29 pilot.   Basem undergoing upset training at BAA in a Grob     One of the BAA’...

With the arrival of jet powered airliners, commercial pilots entered a new world of high altitude flying in large swept wing aircraft at velocities approaching the speed of sound. They were often unprepared for the challenge and before long unexpected and unexplained loss of control events began to worry the world of aviation. These events initially occurred when an aircraft was upset from its nor...

In the world of Slavic folk tales there are giants in Ukraine but as aviators the ones we are interested are the giants that the fabled aircraft designer Oleg Antonov designed. This is his story. The OKA1 glider   Antonov at the Leningrad Polytechnic   The OKA38 Stork   The An-2   The An-12 Cub   The An-24 Coke   The vast An-22 Cock   The huge An-124 Condor &#160...

It’s logbook time again and you may recall that I was as freshly a minted A1 QFI as there could be and I had just left the training world to return to the front line on my old Squadron, the Fighting Cocks. I had been in Wales for over 4 years and in that time the faces I knew on 43 Sqn had almost all gone… it was like I was joining a unit of strangers.   The Q Shed   Additional arm...

It was a grand sight to see another German aircraft there, a Junkers W33 with its distinctive corrugated metal skin and stylish enclosed cockpit, a far cry from his own flimsy machine. The German pilots greeted each other and marvelled at how, in 1928, they should have met in such a remote place… some 3,300 miles, 5,300 km, from the Fatherland. It is doubtful that the Junkers pilot knew much about...

Instead of a cargo of bored business men and excited holiday makers, this aged DC-10 was carrying 12,000 gallons, thats 45,000 ltrs of bright red liquid in a huge tank attached to the centre of the fuselage. This is the story of the fire fighting water bombers.   A vast DC10 converted to flying tanker operations   A forest fire   Mixing fire retardant   A fire lookout   Th...

On the last tale, Sidewinders and Sparrows we talked a little about the history of rockets and missiles but it’s a big subject so this week I thought I’d expand on the theme a little and as I’m going to mention lots of rattlesnakes and sparrows, I should probably use the correct collective nouns… rhumbas and quarrels!   Rules of Engagement   JTIDS   The result of a Blue on Blu...

Despite their obvious differences, Sidewinders and Sparrows often went together because they aren’t just the names of flying creatures and slithering serpents… they are weapons of war.   The Sidewinder   House Sparrows   The Rapier missile system   Chinese Fire Arrows   The Tipu Sultan’s artillery rockets   The RS-28 rockets fired by the Polikarpov I-16   T...