Non-Military Aviation

[dodint]

Neat. I don't have the time, money, or testicular fortitude to fly anything I've built myself.

[count2infinity]

Neat. I don't have the time, money, or testicular fortitude to fly anything I've built myself.

That was my first thought... imagine that first flight of something that you built. Terrifying.

[NTP66]

Neat. I don't have the time, money, or testicular fortitude to fly anything I've built myself.

That was my first thought... imagine that first flight of something that you built. Terrifying.

I wouldn’t go more than 10’ off the ground.

[dodint]

Just get a balloon with a short tether.

Speaking of, I've been invited on a balloon trip in July out near Philly. I'm not sure I can deal with being suspended in a wicker basket below a sack full of hot air.

[Shyster]

I wouldn't have a problem buying a kit aircraft that I'd built, like something from Vans, which has sold thousands of kits. But of course that's very different from flying an aircraft that you also designed yourself.

[dodint]

Vans, as in, the bankrupt Vans?

[Shyster]

Well yeah, but a lot of GA manufacturers have gone bankrupt at some point. Beechcraft went BK, Piper went BK multiple times, Mooney went BK and is no longer manufacturing, Columbia went BK and was bought by Textron and made part of Cessna, etc. Even Cessna and Cirrus might have gone BK in the past if they hadn't been bought by General Dynamics and then Textron (for Cessna) and by Bahrain and then the Chinese government (for Cirrus).

[shafnutz05]

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerosp ... 024-05-21/

Keep your seat belts buckled kids. Never ceases to amaze me how many idiots unbuckle the second the light comes off and just sit there.

Buckle up. That is the message from flight attendants and pilots following the severe turbulence encountered by a Singapore Airlines (SIAL.SI), opens new tab flight on Tuesday that resulted in the death of one passenger and injured dozens of others.
The London-to-Singapore flight hit heavy turbulence over the Indian Ocean and descended 6,000 feet (around 1,800 meters) in about three minutes, before an emergency landing in Bangkok

[tifosi77]

Pilots for all flights should just be authorized once every flight hour to randomly push the yoke forward unannounced. Maybe work out like a secret handshake type deal with cabin crew so they aren't the ones caught unawares. Bang a few people off the overhead bulkheads once in a while.

[LITT]

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerosp ... 024-05-21/

Keep your seat belts buckled kids. Never ceases to amaze me how many idiots unbuckle the second the light comes off and just sit there.

Buckle up. That is the message from flight attendants and pilots following the severe turbulence encountered by a Singapore Airlines (SIAL.SI), opens new tab flight on Tuesday that resulted in the death of one passenger and injured dozens of others.
The London-to-Singapore flight hit heavy turbulence over the Indian Ocean and descended 6,000 feet (around 1,800 meters) in about three minutes, before an emergency landing in Bangkok

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9xx5pj095jo

[tifosi77]

So, important to note

- The passenger died of heart attack (e.g. scurred to death);

- For most/nearly all of us the worst turbulence we've ever experienced would still be classed as 'moderate' and the aircraft altitude changed by less than 10' with any given bump.

[LITT]

Singapore’s Transport Safety Investigation Bureau has released its preliminary report on flight #SQ321, which encountered extreme turbulence. The “recorded vertical acceleration decreased from +ve 1.35G to negative (-ve) 1.5G, within 0.6 sec” https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/1-de ... urbulence/

[dodint]

Did my first sky squiggles today. Searching for mac's house, mostly.

Was great to finally get in the plane and off the ground. Bit blustery, 9kts sustained and gusts over 20kts. My instructor did a nice crosswind landing.

It's SO MUCH to consider and process while flying. It's going to be hard, but fun.

[NTP66]

Look at this guy over here, can't even fly in a straight line...

[shafnutz05]

Good stuff dodint. Are there a lot of updrafts with all the hills out there?

[dodint]

Good stuff dodint. Are there a lot of updrafts with all the hills out there?

Yeah, the thermals are a thing. Our eastern boundary for the practice area is the ridge and you can feel it. There is a glider base down near Washington I might check out eventually.

I had my second lesson yesterday. When I pulled the plane out of the hangar another plane was coming off the runway and was parked on the taxiway doing their post-landing checks. It was the two-seat Crazy Horse P-51D (https://www.stallion51.com/mustang-flig ... azy-horse/) getting some fuel during a cross country to New York. That prop is over 11ft and looks absolutely massive when spinning. I did my lesson for about an hour and he took off while I was waiting for the fuel truck during my post flight, it's one of the best sounds in aviation.

The Stallion 51 experience/school is pretty wild. I'd love to go up in one for an hour and get the controls, a guy at a flying forum I go to did just that recently and his write-up was great.

[willeyeam]

Indian Head made the map. Didn't know anyone lived there or knew of it besides my family. My great grandparents lived there and my great grandpa flew a bit from what I know

[dodint]

Indian Head had a VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) station which is why it's on there. It was decommissioned in June of 2023. I only know about it because I used it in MSFS to practice VOR navigation, and then when I started flying for real I noticed it wasn't on the chart.

With the rise of GPS the FAA has been decommissioning the smaller VOR and maintaining a minimally effective network. The Indian Head VOR was important because VOR is radio, and thus line of sight, and some planes couldn't pick up the VOR at Johnstown at lower altitudes.

[tifosi77]

There is nothing as exhilarating as a P-51 with a Merlin engine piling on the knots. I've heard it described as stimulating the ass-kickital lobe of the male brain.

The advertised height limit for P-51 passengers is 6'2". They also cost north of $7,000/flight hr to book, but those are commercial rates.

[Ad@m]

[Shyster]

To end up near that island, it looks like the aircraft probably departed runway 33 at Burlington and then entered a climbing left turn to head south for Providence. That would have taken them out over Lake Champlain (which runs mostly north-south), at night, in snowy conditions and poor visibility. It can be hard enough to fly over water at night in clear conditions because of a lack of lights and other visual clues as to which way is "down." Add in snow, and those are practically textbook conditions for spatial disorientation. I mean, it could have been something else like a mechanical failure, but my bet would have been on spatial disorientation. RIP.

[dodint]

Very similar scenario here, at 2:40 they do a sim recreation of it:

[Shyster]

I want to say there was a bizjet that crashed a few years back after departing Burke Lakeside Airport in Cleveland (which IMO should still be hosting an IndyCar race). Turned north over Lake Erie at night and crashed within a couple minutes. IIRC, the NTSB determined that the probable cause was spatial disorientation, coupled with fatigue for the pilot.

[dodint]

I joined a flying club and now have fractional ownership in a 1976 Piper Archer II. We had our semi-annual wash/wax day on Saturday:



The guy in blue is my step-dad. He was an aviation mechanic in the USMC and loves this stuff so he asked to tag along. He had a great time. I also got to meet some more club members which was great too, some of them are retired airline pilots with more hours than I could ever hope to accrue.

[Ad@m]

@dodint