Out of Airspeed, Altitude And Ideas
Photo Gallery Of The Blue Angles
Ferry Flight Pic of The Day
Scenes from a Russian control tower.
Olga:(Yes, that was her real name.) “My, Mr. John, what a big camera you have. Can I hold it?”
John: (Who NEVER lets anyone hold his camera, because if they drop it we’re screwed) “Why of course you can Olga.”
Heh
While taxiing at London ‘s Airport, the crew of a US Air flight departing for Ft Lauderdale made a wrong turn and came nose to nose with a United 727.
An irate female ground controller lashed out at the US Air crew, screaming: “US Air 2771, where the hell are you going? I told you to turn right onto Charlie taxiway! You turned right on Delta! Stop right there. I know it’s difficult for you to tell the difference between C and D, but get it right!”
Continuing her rage to the embarrassed crew, she was now shouting hysterically:
Now you’ve screwed everything up! It’ll take forever to sort this out! You stay right there and don’t move till I tell you to! You can expect progressive taxi instructions in about half an hour, and I want you to go exactly where I tell you, when I tell you, and how I tell you! You got that, US Air 2771?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the humbled crew responded.
Naturally, the ground control communications frequency fell terribly silent after the verbal bashing of US Air 2771. Nobody wanted to chance engaging the irate ground controller in her current state of mind. Tension in every cockpit out around Gatwick was definitely running high. Just then an unknown pilot broke the silence and keyed his microphone, asking:
“Wasn’t I married to you once?”
H/T Charles E
Fight’s On (Immelman Turn)
“Night Ballet”
Oshkosh is coming. Be there or be square.
Ferry Flight Pic of The Day
Some mothballed Soviet aircraft sitting on the side of the runway in Petropavlovsk Russia. With there military style radar up and running and all the security around the fighters and helicopters I felt like Clint Eastwood in the movie “Firefox” sneaking into the secret airbase to steal a top secret jet. I even had a guard escort me to the restroom. What did they think I was going to do? Steal the forty grit sandpaper they use for toilet paper?
Pick Me! Pick me!
Red Bull’s Long Jump Set For This Summer.
As the Red Bull Stratos project continues preparations to break Joe Kittinger’s long-standing freefall record with a jump from a balloon at over 120,000 feet later this summer, the team this week released an animation of what the experience will be like for skydiver Felix Baumgartner. The video shows the balloon and the capsule suspended beneath it climbing through the atmosphere into the blackness of space, with the Earth’s curved surface far below. Baumgartner pauses on the capsule’s threshold to take in the view before leaping off. Red Bull says Baumgartner may reach supersonic speed on his descent.
No date has been set for the jump, but a 90,000-foot test jump is expected to launch from Roswell, N.M., sometime in the next few weeks. “After that one is completed, we hang out waiting for the right moment to do the BIG ONE!!,” Baumgartner posted recently on his Facebook page. Kittinger’s record of 102,800 feet was set in 1960. He was an Air Force test pilot working with the space program. The Red Bull team has been working on the project since 2005.
Boy oh boy I’d give ANYTHING to be able to take that ride. I love high altitude jumps and have jumped from 20,000 feet three times. One time was in a Cessna turbo 206 that took a full day to get up to altitude. We took off just after the sun had dipped below the horizon, climbing out we got high enough to see the sun again, essentially sunrise, then as our climb rate dropped the sun set again, hence it too one full “day” to get to altitude. Click on the link for a really cool animation of the jump.
Night Jump Over Fireworks
This 4th of July I finally got to do the jump I’ve been trying to put together for years, a night jump over the lake in Menomonie where they put on a great fireworks show every year. The jump was a big success with me and 18 of my friends jumping out of the Twin Otter from thirteen thousand feet over the lake. The view was everything I’d hoped for with the fireworks going off beneath my feet and reflecting off the water for a cool mirror effect. We flew around for twelve minutes or so watching the big show along with all the little private ones going off across the countryside then landed at the municipal airport that was only two miles away. We packed up our parachutes, flew back to the drop zone and jumped back in, capping off the night by having three jumpers land off. A lot of the jumpers were a bit nervous about doing a night jump into somewhere unfamiliar but after having such a great time I think this is going to be a yearly event. The video isn’t very good because I kept looking around to keep from running into the other jumpers.