Non-Military Aviation

[tifosi77]

Oh my..... that's a rather........... oof.

[dodint]

Trying to decide how far ahead on my personal timeline I want to get my PPL. Big issue for me is that plane ownership is still 10-15 years away so I'd be part of a flying club. Browsed the website for the one up in Zelienople but 100 flyers sharing six small planes (1 152, a few 172s, and some Pipers) seems like they'd be spread pretty thin. As fun as getting up and flying around locally for one or two hours at a time is I'm really more interested in cross country flights; like fly down to Knoxville and see my uncle for a day or two and get back. Not sure what the policy (if there is one, it's unwritten) or etiquette is for reserving a plane for the whole weekend. All they say in print is that if you book it for a day and the plane doesn't fly you still pay an hour for that day. So if I flew down on Friday and back up Sunday, they would still charge a flight hour for Saturday.

I've wanted a PPL since I was a teenager, used to really be big into the flight sim stuff. It's not a new interest but one that is starting to show up on the horizon as doable.

[NTP66]

I wanted to go that route when I was younger, as well. Took a number of lessons, mostly in 172s, which I enjoyed.

[Shyster]

Because you know damn well that the airlines aren't going to go with the optimal configuration; you're not getting a 20" wide seat in the middle (even though that would do me no good, as I only sit in window seats). It's purely comfort, from my perspective. Their seat pitch isn't exactly conducive to comfort for anyone over 6' tall.

Seat pitch is one thing, and I agree that and eliminating footroom is always an option for airlines. But I don't think there are margins for airlines to play around for seat width. The A220's cabin is half a meter narrower than the cabins on the 737 or A320. It's a smaller aircraft. There literally isn't enough width to cram in a 3-3 seat pattern because the aisle would end up being illegally narrow, so there is no advantage to he had from narrowing the seats.

[NTP66]

Oh, I know. Just saying that a wide middle seat is completely useless for me personally.

[NTP66]

I just discovered a website that allows you to search for flights specifically on an A380. When we do our Australia trip, I am most definitely spending the cash to be able to fly on one.

[tifosi77]

Would you care to share the URL of that site for the group here?

[NTP66]

Oops, my bad: https://www.iflya380.com/

It’s actually a site created and run by Airbus themselves.

[Shyster]

A China Airlines Boeing 747-400F freighter decided to do a little off-roading while attempting a landing on 10L at Chicago O'Hare on June 21. It's a good thing cargo can't crap its pants, because if this had been a passenger flight then China Airlines would have needed to clean a whole lot of seats. Surveillance video is toward the end.

[tifosi77]

There may not have been any passengers on the Dynasty aircraft, but there were certainly enough people in the jets holding short that had their day livened up.

[RonnieFranchise]

British Airways is coming back to PIT nonstop to LHR!

4x weekly on the Dreamliner.

[Shyster]

Looks like the Airport Authority is kicking in a lot of money to fund that route, but regardless it's a significant "get" for Pittsburgh to have a route to the severely slot-limited Heathrow. If someone had told me out of the blue that PIT was getting a flight to London, I would have guessed a secondary airport like Stansted or Gatwick, and I probably would have also guessed a low-cost airline like Norwegian Air Shuttle UK's new long-haul subsidiary operation (which uses the awesome callsign "Rednose" for its fleet of 787s).

[dodint]

Wendover did a cool video about the cost of running airports and used Heathrow as their main case study.

[shafnutz05]

I love that Chuck Yeager is still tweeting actively at age 95.

[tifosi77]

If someone had told me out of the blue that PIT was getting a flight to London, I would have guessed a secondary airport like Stansted or Gatwick...

I can't imagine Gatwick is less congested; it's the second-largest airport in the UK despite effectively being a single runway operation.

[Shyster]

I can't imagine Gatwick is less congested; it's the second-largest airport in the UK despite effectively being a single runway operation.

True. London is a mess when it comes to airports. It has six of them, but none of them are optimal. Heathrow only has two runways, although I understand they will be constructing a third. Luton, Gatwick, Stansted, and Southend only have single runways. City not only has a single runway, it's super-short, and that pretty much limits the airport to regional jets. I think the largest aircraft it can handle are the A318 and the new A220. My understanding is that the reason Swiss was one of the early adopters of the CS100/A220-200 is because it can operate from City.

[Shyster]

Another great video by Captain Joe:

[tifosi77]

First time in London, I didn't know City Airport was a thing. Was sightseeing with a coworker at Tower Bridge/Tower of London when my eyes caught a multi-engine passenger jet lifting up out of the skyline. Moment of cognitive dissonance ensued. I was just "......... Huh......"

[Shyster]

An Aeromexico Connect Embraer E-Jet E190 performing flight AM-2431 from Durango to Mexico City went off the runway on takeoff. The aircraft is utter toast, but amazingly it looks like everyone survived. Initial reports are that the aircraft suffered an engine failure at or near V1, veered left off the runway, and eventually came to a stop past the end of the runway. Video from the crash site seems to show both engines (and a big trail of debris) off the left side of the runway. There's some video of the site in this AV Herald link:

http://avherald.com/h?article=4bbcb11c&opt=0

Not sure whether either engine separated due to the supposed engine failure or whether they were torn off by the aircraft going "off road."

[tifosi77]

Considering they're both a good bit off the runway, I'd say the engines were sheared off after a gear collapse. Altho the photo that shows the starboard side shows the wing tip is drooped down, so at least part of the nacelle is still mounted.

Yikes.

This is the big difference between a home airport of LAX and SFO. At LAX, 99% of departures are westward, and there are great banks of dirt that would prevent an overrun that far. At SFO, 80% of departures have the Bay at the end of the runway; and for the other departures, the first stop after the threshold is the 101 freeway.

[Shyster]

Air-crash investigators have to love our modern world and the fact that just about everyone is carrying a video camera.

Passenger video right side:


Passenger video left side:


I don't see or hear any engine failure, and the aircraft did get off the ground before coming right back down. One thing you can see is that the weather during the roll was horrendous. It looks like a massive storm was hitting the airport at that exact moment. Here's a webcam of the storm hitting Durango:


This could be one of those rare cases where a weather event brings down an aircraft by itself. Windshear or a microburst right at takeoff could have put the aircraft right back on the ground.

[Shyster]

Teenager tries to steal American Eagle jet to fly to a "a rap music concert in Chicago."

http://txktoday.com/crime/man-accused-t ... a-airport/

I'm going to hazard a guess that drugs or alcohol may have been involved.

[tifosi77]

Windshear or a microburst right at takeoff could have put the aircraft right back on the ground.

Yes, that looks like shear to me.

[Freddy Rumsen]

Plane crash in Staples parking lot kills five near Los Angeles.

https://mobile.twitter.com/hburgamerica ... 4253921284

[tifosi77]

At first, I thought "I know that strip mall".

But that strip mall doesn't have a Staples; it's an Office Depot.

Then I read the story.............. crash happened in Santa Ana, in Orange County, which is almost 60 miles from Los Angeles.