Terminator Drones In Paradise

US considers launching drones from Indian Ocean coral atolls

The US is looking to use the Australian-administered Cocos Islands – a group of tiny coral atolls in the Indian Ocean – to launch unmanned drones as it continues its strategic pivot away from the Middle East towards Asia Pacific.

 

We hopefully never completely do away with brave men, and women, hurling down runways and flight decks, flying into harms way to put warheads on foreheads but the writing’s on the wall.  Unmanned drones are going to play an increasingly important role in the combined arms package in the future and having a few cheap and “unsinkable” bases in the Indian Ocean would be a thorn in China’s side in any regional conflict.

Ferry Flight Pic of The Day

Amman Jordan

This was taken just after takeoff from Amman Jordan last October in a SR-22 Cirrus.  Amman was one of the most magical places I’ve ever spent ten hours in.  I was struck by the fact that all the buildings were the same color from the air.  If you look carefully at the left center part of the picture you can see that they had some kind of archeological dig going on in the L shaped clear area that a temple at the far end.

 

 

JetBlue Pilot Has Apparent Breakdown

Apparently the Captain of a JetBlue flight had some sort of a breakdown inflight today.  He was running up and down the aisle yelling something about a bomb before being restrained by passengers.  Another airline pilot happened to be a passenger on that flight and was brought up to the flight deck to help land the plane.  This touches on something I’ve always wondered about.  If both pilots were incapacitated could I land the plane?  It has been done before, By Kurt Russell in the movie “Executive Decision.”  Although he did a crappy job.  I’m pretty sure I could land a large jet, they’re mandatory after all, landings that is.  If I can find the throttles, flaps and landing gear I can fly a reasonable approach in any aircraft.  The problem might be in selecting reverse thrust If I’m going too fast for the breaks or if I had to shoot an approach in bad weather, then all bets are off.  I shudder to think what might happen if one pilot has a breakdown and kills or incapacitates the other pilot.  If there doesn’t happen to be a spare in the back things could get ugly.

Ferry Flight Pic of The Day

F-33 Bonanza

Here’s the F-33 Bonanza over southern Brazil last September on the way to the new owners ranch.  The Bonanza is a great plane except for the fact that it’s very easy to load it with an aft center of gravity making weight and balance calculations vital.  The photo was taken from the owners friend in his SR-22 Cirrus.

There I Was

I started flying small planes over big oceans in 1990 and immediately began gathering information and experiences for a book someday, mostly by almost getting killed.  Two years ago I finally started trying to get some of my flying stories down on paper if for no other reason than to keep me from forgetting them, how will I bore my children if I run out of stories?  Anyway I’m getting close to finishing the book, here’s on of the shorter stories about when I lost an engine on a Mooney I was delivering to Italy.

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

 

173rd Airborne Brigade Jump Into Northern Iraq (2003) – YouTube

I never made it to airborne school, I went to Air Assault School where we learned to rappel out of helicopters and was MUCH more difficult than dope on a rope school, but I digress.  A night jump with a round parachute and loaded down with a ton of gear is scary enough, doing it into an enemy held airfield is………..well I can’t think of a big enough word for it but it takes big brass ones to to do what these guys do.      AIRBORNE!

Phenom Trip, The Finish Line

To say that our accommodations in Anadyr Siberia were spartan would be the understatement of the year.  There was no hot tub, TV, room service, coffee, mini bar, restaurant or anyone who spoke English, and that included our handler Boris, his real name I swear to god.  So after a good  nights sleep Marcio and I endured the standard three hour Russian goodby, courtesy  of the ever friendly customs and immigration services we pointed the nose of the Phenom east and headed out over the Bearing sea.  The flight to Anchorage was an easy one.  Not much to see over the ocean except the occasional Deadliest Catch boat out there trolling for ratings.  Once we hit Alaska the view became fantastic.  The clouds broke and we could see vast mountain ranges with Denali rising above them all.  At one point a 747 bound for Asia passed beneath us giving me a chance for a picture and a little bit of gloating, I was flying a jet higher than Air Force One flew, pretty cool.

 The sun was setting as we landed in Anchorage and by the time we cleared customs and put the plane to bed a full moon had risen above the mountains and bathed the ramp in a golden glow.

   

The next day’s flight to Las Vegas was pretty dull stuff, fun for us but dull to read about.  The next two nights on the other hand would be very interesting to read about but you know what they say about what happens in Vegas.  All in all my first trip over the Pacific was a blast and besides being a slow learner on the computer I thought I did a reasonably good job flying my first jet.  I hope there are more of those in my future.

Neptunus Lex Tribute post of The Week

On Piddle Packs « Neptunus Lex.

Our flight back from Deadwood this weekend was three and a half hours long with the detour around Mt. Rushmore thrown in.  After taking the required pictures of the stone presidents it was time to point the nose for home.  It wasn’t long before Joe, on of my non-pilot friends in the back, inquired as to how is might be until the first fuel stop.  I proudly informed him that due to a nice tailwind we could make it all the way to Minneapolis saving both fuel and time and wasn’t that wonderful?  It was not.  Having counted on two short legs instead of one long one my friend wasn’t shy about having that second or third cup of coffee that morning.  Joe was forced to use the empty glass orange juicehe’d brought along for just such an emergency.  I only wagged the wings while he was so engaged once.