Plane Tales

Form 414, my RAF Logbook continues with me leaving Australia and the Hornet unhappily in my rear vision mirror as I was heading back to Blighty and a cold winter in Lincolnshire.  No 229 Operational Conversion Unit was the training unit that would give me my first taste of the Mighty Fin, the Swing Wing Super Jet, Mother Riley's Cardboard Aeroplane otherwise known as the Air Defence Variant of the Tornado.   Not just a British aircraft, the Tornado was a project involving Germany and Italy as well.   A cutaway of the ADV Tornado   Just some of the multitude of limitations that Tornado pilots were required to memorise   The Tornado cockpit showing the wing sweep lever   The Mighty Fins of 43 and 111 Squadrons   The RB199 lacked sufficient thrust to allow the F3 to perform adequately at medium and high level but it did have a way of going backwards!   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Surruno, Panavia, BAe, the RAF Museum, Mike Freer, Kevan Dickin, Chris Lofting and the RAF.

After I landed my aircraft I clambered out of the Hornet with the cold realisation that I might have flown my last sortie.  The spinning sensation had ceased and the sortie had gone beautifully, it was almost as if it had been a bad dream. A continuation of tales from the Old Pilot's logbook, RAF Form 414.   Was the sun about to set on my career?   The surgery span round and round   Promotion   Exercise K89   One of our opponents, the F16   Firing off live missiles like the AIM 7M Sparrow   Landing in a thunderstorm   A week on Song Song island acting as the Range Safety Officer   The RSO and his crew of Malay troops   My final flight and the boys renamed my aircraft Nick The Pom!    

The year is 1957 and the space race is underway.  The major powers around the world, mainly the Soviet Union and the United States, are all striving to develop the technology that will allow them to reach outer space. The Soviet Union's Academy of Sciences prime aim was to beat the Americans into Earth orbit and their top secret Sputnik project was about to reward all the efforts put in by a generation of scientists and engineers.  Sputnik 1 was soon to be placed atop an R-7 rocket and launched into a low orbit to become the first artificial Earth Satellite. But what if they hadn't been the first?   Sputnik was fired into a low earth orbit on the 4th of October 1957 atop an R-7 rocket   Some months before the Sputnik launch the US were conducting nuclear tests   The Pascal I underground test caused a huge blue flame to erupt from the desert   Very high speed cameras were used to film the tests   The Horizons spacecraft   People wonder what became of the manhole cover and if anything was written on it?   Images under a Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Atomic Heritage Foundation, the Federal Government of the United States, NNSA and NASA.

Let me take you back to the dim distant past and Captain Jeff's start with his legacy airline, ACME, I mean Delta, no ACME, Delta, Acta, Delme… oh whatever. His career started, not in the Captain's seat but somewhere in the bowels of flight deck, sitting sideways with control panels in front of him instead of windows, that stretched to the ceiling!  Jeff was an engineer on his favourite three holer, the Boeing 727. The loss rate for this iconic airliner was, unhappily, quite high.  As of 2019 the aircraft had suffered 351 major incidents of which 119 resulted in a total loss.  The loss of life resulting from these bare numbers has risen to over four thousand souls.  One addition to those sad statistics came from Flight 600.  This is the story.   The Boeing 727 Flight Deck   The 727 on its maiden flight   The famous S bend   With tail mounted engines the wings could be fitted with full span lift devices   The B727 was the first first airliner to have an APU   The 727 had rear mounted stairs that were used by the nefarious DB Cooper   Which resulted in the fitting of a Cooper Vane   The mechanics of a microburst   Our Captain Jeff   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Felix Goetting, Alex Beltyukov, Boeing, Tank67, Daderot, Juras14, Aero Icarus and NASA.

Two of the Saratoga's F14 Tomcats were tasked to defend the carrier against a simulated attack during Exercise Display Determination 87. The leader of this small formation included a senior pilot and skipper of a newly arrived Junior Grade Lieutenant Timothy Dorsey. Many years later, Dorsey would be nominated for promotion to a one-star Rear Admiral, an appointment that required Congressional approval.  What stood in his way was an incident that occurred during that fateful day in 1987.   USS Saratoga   Timothy Dorsey   F14 Tomcats on deck   An F4 tanking   HUD film of the engagement   US Navy wings   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the US Navy, US Air Force and the US Gov.

Part 2 of my interview with my mate Matt, steely eyed rocket man extraordinaire.   Goonhilly   Gyros and spacecraft in Telstar   The interior of Telstar   The magnitude of space junk around the world   The first live TV pictures transmitted via satellite   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to NASA, I Alison, Rama, NASA, US Gov, the BBC and Andrew Bulko

At first glance he looks to be a rather scruffy and unkempt elderly chap but behind the heavy glasses there are two twinkling eyes that reveal more than you can imagine.  Indeed, appearances can be deceiving as this retired RAF Technician could have well been a steely eyed missile man as he controlled military satellites around during the Cold War.  Meet my mate Matt! Sputnik     RAF Oakhanger   Inmarsat equipment on board a ship   Not every launch was a success   Telstar   Voyager   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Nigel Chadwick, NRAO/AUI, Saber1983, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Dale Griffin USGS, then Science Museum and NSAS.

In the tale, the Applegate Memorandum, I described the difficult birth that McDonnell Douglas had with the DC-10 when it's safety record was permanently marred by a cargo door design flaw that plagued its introduction.  Sadly, this wasn't the only issue that was going to discredit the aircraft in the eye of its passengers and they would ultimately condemn the world's first 3 engined wide body as a dangerous failure.  Although the aircraft's problems with its cargo doors could be firmly laid at the feet of McDonnell Douglas, the next disaster that the aircraft would have to cope with was not of the manufacture's making, but of some operators who took it upon themselves to shorten engineering procedures.   Then incident aircraft N110AA   Cutaway showing the configuration of the wing mounted engines   The DC10 cockpit   The last moments of American Airlines Flight 191   The aftermath   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Dale Coleman, Jyra Sapphire, Jon Proctor, the Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives, the NTSB, the US Gov and American Airlines.  

I left you last time after we had returned with our Hornets from New Zealand having had a very productive and interesting few weeks working with the Kiwi A4 Skyhawks.  We soon settled back into our Squadron HQ at RAAF Williamtown and started to work up some Maritime Strike tactics against the ships of the Australian Navy.  These were early days for the Australian Hornets and the anti ship missiles that were to be purchased had yet to be properly integrated into the aircraft's weapons system... and so continues the Tales from the Old Pilot's Log Books.   The Hornets mix it with the Navy!   It was the P3 Orion's job to find the ships and broadcast their positions   The RAAF had yet to equip their F18s with anti ship missiles but that didn't stop us training   We flew affiliation sorties against the RAAF Caribous so I got the chance to observe from the other side of the engagement   Called in from leave to fly an engine air test I did so with my holiday beard still attached!   The rake of the Hornet seat didn't suit my back leading to a nagging problem   On our way to Malaysia we staged through Bali   At RMAF Butterworth we stayed in the beautiful old RAF Mess   And could frequently be found in the Hong Kong Bar   Back home in Australia I started to suffer from vertigo and wondered if the dream had come to an end

The conclusion of a chat over a pint with Wood Duck, the Royal Australian Air Force Air Attache to the Australian High Commission in London.   Images of No 2 OCU when it was equipped with the FA18   The handover of No 2 OCU Hornets to the new commanding officer and the new F35 Lightning fighters.   RSAF Hawk trainers

As a fighter pilot on the newly formed 77 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force, now equipped with brand new FA/18s, we had many experienced pilots but before long we also acquired pilots on their first operational type.  One such pilot was Woody, or more formally known as Wood Duck and flying the Hornet was just the start of a long career in aviation that took him all around the world.  Now the Air Attache at the Australian High Commission in London, Woody and I met at a local hostelry and had a beer whilst talking about old times.   The Australian FA/18B   Flypasts performed by No 2 OCU RAAF whilst under Woody's command   Woody as a youngster in the Hong Kong bar whilst on deployment in Malaysia.   RAAF Hornets in Butterworth   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAAF, the USAF, the RMAF and No 2 OCU RAAF.

So you want to be an airline pilot? You want to travel the world, visit strange and exotic countries and immerse yourself in the wonders of foreign cultures? You want to make a good living, bring up a family and plan for a wonderful retirement driving your luxurious RV around the wide open spaces of your beloved country? Has it crossed you mind that your chosen occupation might not be the safest way to achieve your dreams?   The Old Curmudgeon rides again   Airliner crashes are rare events   Ensure that you join a recognised union that can afford you legal representation anywhere in the world

I trust that you will recall the stories from my RAF Logbook which had reached the point of my first Hornet deployment to New Zealand to work with the Kiwi A4 Skyhawks of No 75 Squadron Royal New Zealand Air Force at Ohakea. The squadron we were working with had a rich history and I was sure I was going to enjoy my time with them.   75 Sqn RNZAF formed with Wellingtons purchased by the New Zealand government   75 Sqn A4 Skyhawk   The Kiwi Red formation team   Inverted whilst in contact   An A4 in combat firing rockets   How to fly a flat scissors   An FA18 pulls into the vertical   The effectiveness of camouflage   Low level   Attacking a splash target   The Hornet at night   The disappearance of the hook was investigated   The perp was arrested!   75 Sqn RNZAF was sadly disbanded   Images shown under creative commons licence with thanks to the RAF, the New Zealand Defence Force, the USN, CNATRA, Bernardo Malfitano and Myself.  

The Right Hand Traffic Rule stated that an aircraft which was flying within the United Kingdom in sight of the ground and following a road, railway, canal or coastline, or any other line of landmarks shall keep such line of landmarks on its left.  For reasons that defeat me the rule went on to give an exception stating, “provided that this rule shall not apply to a helicopter following the Motorway M4 on a route from West Drayton to Osterley Lock!”  Let me take you back to the the birth of commercial aviation in Europe after the First World War.Daimler Airways operated the De Havilland aircraft on the Croydon to Paris route and Grands Express were operating the same route, albeit originating from Paris. The scene was therefore set and, no doubt the astute amongst you will already be speculating on what befell the Daimler Airway mail flight departing Croydon on the 7th of April 1922 and the Grand Express aircraft that left Le Bourget on the same day, just after noon.  This is that story.   The Farman Goliath airliner   The DH18   The BAS 500cc single Gold Star   London to Le Bourget   Le Bourget to London   Traffic in France drove on the right hand side   On that fateful day, the weather was poor   The Picardie accident was the world's first mid air collision between airliners   Images shown under the Creative Commons licence with thanks to Albert Thuloup, Handley Page, BP, SADSM, The Library of Congress and Popular Mechanics.

Traditionally the phrase Brass Monkeys goes hand in hand with weather so cold that only a naughty sounding description like, “It's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey,” will suffice.  If, however, you were the crew member a NATO aircraft in Europe during the tense times of the Cold War, Brass Monkeys meant something very specific!  It was a code phrase that everyone knew of and listened out for on the Guard frequency just in case it was broadcast.  Two or three minutes into the flight Rikki was super-sonic and climbing through twenty thousand feet or so when the first “Brass Monkeys” call came over the radio: “Brass monkeys, brass monkeys, aircraft heading east at high speed fifty miles east of Gutersloh, brass monkeys”. He ignored it! The true origin of Brass Monkeys has been lost in time   The identification papers of defector Viktor Belenko   Map of the East/West German airspace   An F84   West German Navy Sea Hawk   A Lightning F3 landing   Mig 21s chasing   Returning safely   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Louis-Philippe Crépin, images in the Public Domain, the CIA, the RAF, Rosario Van Tulpe, Milborne One and Mike Freer.  

Life on 77 Squadron had settled down to a routine, if it ever really could on a fighter squadron. There was certainly plenty of variety to our flying. In one month I flew some practice bombing attacks, both day and night, on the Evans Head weapon's range north by 230 nm. This was followed by a 4 ship formation demonstration of ground attack on our own airfield as part of an Open Day celebration for the public.  Then night radar bombing on the Beecroft range at Jarvis bay about 150 nm south. Then we bombed and sank a tug boat before flying off to New Zealand.   The Squadron hours board   A head on view of the FA18A   Our Hornets in close formation   A MK82 low drag general purpose bomb   A 77 Sqn Hornet landing   RNZAF Strikemasters AKA the Bluntie   The RNZAF A4 Skyhawk   Landing at Ohakea   My old buddy John       Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Myself and Greenshed.

Marvin and Rebecca's first two flights of the day were cancelled due to high winds at Newark so they both waited in the crew room until their company dispatch released them for flight 3407 at 6pm, 4 and a half hours after their initial report time.  Certainly for Rebecca, it had been a long time since she had done more than nap in a chair.  Their flight to Buffalo was due to take 53 minutes and they were carrying 45 passengers which, along with their two cabin attendants meant that they had 49 souls onboard their Q400 aircraft. The pilots' performance was likely impaired because of fatigue but to what extent could not be conclusively determined.  However, they boiled down to the flight crew's failure to monitor airspeed, the flight crew's failure to adhere to sterile cockpit procedures, the Captain's failure to effectively manage the flight and Colgan Air's inadequate procedures for airspeed selection, management during approaches in icing conditions and training.  This is the story of Colgan Air Flight 3407.   A Bombardier Q400   The SAAB 340   The DH Dash 8   Examples of wing icing   Stills from the NTSB accident report   Stills from the NTSB accident report   Stills from the NTSB accident report   The wreckage of Flight 3407   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Lord of the Wings, Bill Abbott, Steve Fitzgerald, NASA and the NTSB.

With thanks to listener Sam Dawson who has such interesting relatives and to Betty Goerke, the author of a book about Baz Bagby, A Broken Propeller. I am pleased to present the story of Sam Dawson's Great Uncle Baz.   Stunt pilot Lincoln Beachey at Niagara   The 1st Aero Squadron   Early Aerial Reconnaissance   The 88th Aero Squadron     General Billy Mitchell   The start of the Great Transcontinental Air Race   Great Uncle Baz   Images under creative commons licence with thanks to the Library of Congress, the USAAC, the USAF, the RFC, the US Army, the National Archives and SADSM.  

The continuation of my log book tales, otherwise known as RAF Form 414, and we are up to Volume 20.  Apart from other asides, this tale deals with my accidental overflight of a very secret satellite surveillance base run by the Australians and the CIA!   Overflying Uluru (Ayres Rock)   My arrival at Alice Springs airport   My 'circumnavigation' of Australia   My aircraft being impounded on arrival at RAAF Pearce   Seeing my father at the 1881 Resturant   The Great Australian Bight   Passing through RAAF Edinburgh   Looking back through the fins   Heading home to Williamtown Images under creative commons licence with thanks to Myself, Nachoman-au and Google Earth.

The DC-10 was McDonnell Douglas's first commercial airliner project since the merger between McDonnell Aircraft Corporation and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. It started life on the drawing boards as a 4 engined, double decked, wide body airliner that could carry 550 passengers but morphed into single deck, three engined aircraft that could carry one passenger short of 400!  In what was expected to be a knockout blow to the competing Lockheed L-1011, the President of American Airlines and James McDonnell of McDonnell Douglas announced American Airlines' intention to acquire the DC-10. Flight 96 was en route between Detroit and Buffalo when, above the city of Windsor in Ontario whilst climbing through 11,750 ft the flight crew heard a distinct thud and dirt and debris flew up from the cockpit floor into their faces. On inspection it was obvious that the rear cargo door had detached from the aircraft.  This is the story of the DC-10 cargo door issue and the engineer who tried to warn the company of the dire problem. The 4 Engined Douglas Proposal   The DC-10   The Cargo Door   The Cargo Door of Flight 96 The Accident Report of Turkish Airlines Flight 981   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the SDASM archives, the Douglas Aircraft Corp, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, the FAA and the DOT AIB.

Telling the tale of my flying career, I left you at the end of my F/A18 conversion course as we reformed the No 77 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron with their brand new Hornets. So far our one and only aircraft A21-5 was being shared around and everyone wanted a piece of it, either to fly or learn how to fix it.  The squadron execs were pretty busy dealing with the job of getting the new squadron personnel squared away so the rest of us got more than our share of flying.  There wasn't much we could do with a single jet but I was happy just to play with a multi million dollar toy and get used to my new home.   The M61A Vulcan Cannon   The 'Pig' Australian F111   My route around Australia   Mt Isa   Arriving at Darwin   Uluru through the HUD         Pine Gap   Alice Springs   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Peter Gronemann, General Dynamics, Fhrx, and Google Maps.

Hawaii became the most recent state to join the union in 1959 and is now the third wealthiest.  Following it's annexation, Hawaii became an important naval base for the US Navy so it is hardly surprising that they should be the first to attempt a flight from the US mainland to the island.  Aviation had already arrived at the islands in 1910 courtesy of Bud Mars, the Curtiss Daredevil.   The Hawaiian Archipelago   The annexation of Hawaii   J C Mars   Commander John Rodgers   Rodgers in the Wright Flyer   The PN9 flying boat   Rodgers and his crew survive to be welcomed into Hawaii   The Atlantic-Fokker C-2 Tri-motor   Atlantic-Fokker C-2 "Bird of Paradise" arrival in Hawaii   The start of the Dole Air Race   In all, six aircraft were lost or damaged beyond repair and ten lives lost.   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Google Map Images, Bain News Service, Harris and Ewing, the Library of Congress, Hawaii Aviation, the USAF and the SDASM.           Images under Creatiove Commons licence with thanks to

It was the 13th of May 1912, a Monday, when a Flanders F3 Monoplane took off from Brooklands in Surrey, a county of England.  The pilot was the aviation pioneer Edward Victor Beauchamp Fisher and his passenger the American millionaire Victor Mason.  Fisher had an Aviator's Certificate, the 77th to be issued, had learned to fly at Brooklands and was a flying instructor there.  He had also worked with both A V Roe (the founder of Avro) and Howard Flanders, whose monoplane he was flying at the time.  The two men had made two or three circuits of the airfield at about 100ft, the 60 hp Green engine operating well when, in a left turn, the aircraft fell to the ground killing both the aviator and his passenger before catching alight and burning.  In the early days of aviation such accidents were fairly common but what sets this one apart is that it was the first in history to become the subject of an accident investigation by an official civilian body… the Public Safety and Accidents Investigation Committee of the Royal Aero Club.   Brooklands airfield and motor racing circuit circa 1907   The Flanders F3/4   The Wright crash   Lt Frank Lahm   The 1920 Air Navigation Act   The 1926 formation of the NTSB   NTSB Investigators   The Challenger disaster     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Daimler Chrysler AG, Bain News Service, National Museum of Health and Medicine, the USAF, UK Gov, NTSB and the Kennedy Space Centre.

  The 12 days of Christmas are generally thought to run from the 26th of December to the 6th of January and is an important period of religious celebration or for those of us who observe Christmas in a more secular manner, it's more likely to be a traditional time of recovery following our holiday excesses and to welcome in the New Year. Of course, those of us in the Aviation industry often remember dates by events that occurred on a particular day and the most memorable are often the most tragic.  With that in mind I present the 12 crashes of Christmas.   The TU144   Earthrise from Apollo 8   The Lockheed A-12 Oxcart   The C-130   The Avro Ten   The Vickers Wellington   The Handley Page O   The captured bomber   Gustav Hamel and Eleanor Trehawke Davies   Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man   The Flying Machine   The Convair 440 Metropolitan airliner   Amelia Mary Earhart   Earhart's Electra   Amy Johnson     A Finnish Fokker   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Michel Gilliand, NASA, the USAF, State Library of Queensland, the RAF, US National Archives, the Rijksmuseum, Luc Viatour, SDASM,and those images within the Public Domain.

Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier was one of two men who left the earth's surface and flew in Montgolfier's balloon for the very first time. He also designed a type of balloon that was given his name that flew using a combination of a lifting gas and hot air. More than 200 years later, his design would be used in the balloon that made the first non stop round the world flight. A Rozièr balloon   Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier in a Montgolfier balloon   De Rozièr perishes in a baloon crash over Wimereux   Don Cameron led the way in record breaking and unusual balloon design     Double Eagle II   Virgin Flyer   The successful balloon circumnavigation by Piccard and Jones     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to those Public Domain images available, NASA, the Smithsonian,The Virgin Group, Cameron balloons and Breitling.

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 them cope with the season's increase in passenger traffic due to the Hajj. Under the hot sun of the Arabian desert, the scene was set for a disaster.   A Nationair DC8   King Abdulaziz International airport in Jeddah   The Maintenance Record analysis   The DC8 gear   A typical brake fire   Excerpt from the accident report   Excerpt from the accident report   Conditions in the cabin became unsurvivable     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Pedro Aragão, Yousefmadari, ICAO and the USAF.

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 heard the world's first man made sonic boom before they reached the ripe old age of 50 is a true testament to the ability of America's finest minds and the bravery of their greatest pilots.   The Bell X1 in flight   The Miles M52   The X Planes   US Military astronaut wings   The X2 drop   The X2 crash   The X15   An X15 launch   Armstrong with the X15   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to NASA, the RAF, the USAF, NPRC,

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 strikes the centre of the target   The CCIP aiming symbology   Mk 82 500lb General Purpose bombs   RAAF Townsville   Mk82s hitting the target on Cordelia Island   Course graduation   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Welcome Collection and the USAF.

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 Allied troops had advanced about 6 miles. The butchers bill of casualties was horrendous. The combined Commonwealth countries number reached nearly 60,000 but was dwarfed by the United Kingdom's casualty number of over 350,000. The battle opened on the 1st of July 1916 with a massed explosion that ranks amongst the largest non nuclear explosions in history and was then considered the loudest human made sound to date, audible beyond London 160 miles away.  It was witnessed by an 18 year old RFC pilot.     The mine under Hawthorn Ridge   Then the dust cleared and we saw the two white eyes of the craters   Going over the top   The la Boisselle mine crater now and then.   Pip's landing   The Fokker Eindecker   Bristol Fighters   A dogfight   The battlefield     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to British First World War Air Service Photo Section, Ernest Brooks, Henry Armytage Sanders, H. D. Girdwood, the RFC and the IWM.

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 stunningly beautiful Hollywood actress, Ella Raines, the first of his 4 wives. The court-martial of General William "Billy" Mitchell 1925     West Point students   A P-38 Lightning A digital representation of SCAT II   A Bf109   Olds and his P51 Mustang SCAT VI   A P80 Shooting Star   The Gloster Meteor   An F86 Sabre of the 71st, Hat in the Ring Sqn   The F4 Phantom   Robin Olds completes his 100th combat mission   Robin Olds in Vietnam after his 4th Mig kill   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to those images in the Public Domain, the Bundesarchive, the USAF, Digital Combat Simulator, Ruffneck88, USAF National Museum and RuthAS.

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 which resembles a vast witch's ducking stool crossed with an iron maiden, first operated in 1955 but was decommissioned as recently as 2019 and has now received Grade 2 protection.   The Institute of Aviation Medicine   The Farnborough Centrifuge   The Cecil Hotel with it's red and white ornate frontage   The august medical journal, the Lancet   Early versions of oxygen masks   An early mobile decompression chamber   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, FAST museum, The Library of Congress, those images within the Public Domain and the National Museum of Health & Medicine.  

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   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Nick Anderson and Google Earth.

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 red drone   Mighty Mouse rockets   1st Lt Moncla   The Canadian UFO   The official USAF report   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Scientific magazine, the USAF, USN, NASA, SDASM, RKO Pictures and those available through Fair Use and Public Domain.

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 anything else his less imaginative competitors were designing. The gliders of Otto Lilienthal   The Armstrong Whitworth AW-52   The Avion/Northrop Experimental No1 pusher    The remains of a Horton flying wing   The Northrop N1M   Nortons XB35   The XP-79 fighter   The XB-49   The YB-35s being broken up at the cancelation of the project   The final successful B-2 Spirit     Images shown under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, the Library of Congress, Northrop, National Museum of the Air Force, Michael.katzmann, the IWM, Sanjay Acharya, the National Archive and NASA.

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 Marauder   The B-17 bombing Japanese shipping North of Australia   The B-17's waist guns   The route for their recce sortie over Bougainville   The Japanese Zero   A Zero passes close aboard   The damage to Old 666   The brave crew fight the Zeros off   Jay Zeamer receives his Medal of Honor     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAAF, Mark Wagner, USAF, USAAC, Gary Fortington, US National Archives and Records Administration, SDASM, Steve Jurvetson and those in the Public Domain or orphaned.

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, aggression and skill. These sorties were complex and demanding, involving tactics we devised to allow us to fly without the use of the radio from start to finish. The RAF's F4 Phantom   The East German border   The Nicholson Trophy for best student on the course   Off to a specialist burns unit in an RAF Search and Rescue Sea King   Packing up our married quarter for Australia   The delights of Hong Kong   My tropical uniform   The last leg to to Australia   Our little married Quarter at RAAF Williamtown   Meeting our neighbours at street BBQ   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF and the author.

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 the freedom to tackle challenges that were previously denied to them, a fight for equality continues to this day.  It is right that we celebrate those early pioneers who took to the air and led the way. The Suffragette movement which paved the way for woman's emancipation   Will Hay, one of Amy's flying instructors   Amy's planned route to Australia   Amy's Gypsy Moth, "Jason"   Amy in India   Amy arrives in Australia   An Airspeed Oxford and notice of Amy's "MISSING BELIEVED KILLED," telegram   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to those in the Public Domain, the National Library of Australia, the UK National Archives, Bob Brown, the Queenslander, SADSM and those of unknown copyright.

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 massive oil leak and this aircraft didn't have a good reputation for single engined flying. An Airwork Viking   The Nene powered Viking   The BEA Viking that survived a bomb explosion intended to bring the aircraft down   Airwork employed a number of Vikings that flew as far afield as South Africa   The aftermath of the crash   Air Hostess Beryl Rothwell   Capt Anderson's youngest son, Nicholas James     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Norsk Luftfartsmuseum, BAe, the Daily Sketch, the AAIB, UK Gov, Vickers and Ruth AS.

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 looked at their aircraft through bottle bottom glasses… or perhaps they never got the memo. The Dunne D5   The Type 184 The Cardington Gasbag   The Shorts S38   The Singapore   The Shorts Empire flying boat   The Sunderland   The COW gun   The Sunderland's internal bomb racks   The Sunderland's rest facilities   The Bombay   The long legged Stirling   The unlikely looking Seamew   Hurel-Dubois Miles 106 Caravan   The Shorts SC 7 Skyvan   The Shorts SD360   The coolest Skyvan ever... Pink!     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Marinha do Brasil, Short Bros of Cardington, the RAF, Shorts, the Library of Congress, SADSM, George Jackman, the Royal Navy, Adrian Pingstone, Tomás Del Coro and those images orphaned or in the Public Domain.

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 productive life ahead… a wish that would be dashed in a few short minutes. The New York skyline   An American Airlines Boeing 707 at LAX   Changes in apparent span and the effects of sideslip on a swept wing when yawed   The 707 rudder control system   Wreckage from American Airlines flight 514   The Calverton crash still smoking   A New York ticker tape parade   The flight recorder trace from the American One's final moments   A reconstruction of the track of Flight One   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Jon Proctor, San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives, the Civil Aeronautics Board and Ted Quackenbush.

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 Phantom QWI badge   The island of Cyprus was famous for its rough red Kokinelli wine   The 20mm SUU23A Vulcan cannon   A typical Cypriot meze   Mrs A moving yet again   Receiving my 1000hrs Phantom badge       The F4 rear office   The arrival of son No1   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Gage Skidmore, Google Earth, Thomas Fedor and Cyprus Tourism.

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's Extras   Basem off to be turned upside down!   Adrian... Basem's ex Mig 29 instructor   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Capt Nick Anderson

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 normal benign straight and level environment and ended up in a high speed dive, something that was rare in the earlier days of straight winged, piston powered airliners. Hence, they became known as Jet Upsets. Coffin Corner!   Upsets involve extreme attitudes   Less than perfect cockpit design often contributes to upsets   A Pan Am B707       China Airlines A300   The tragic result of the China Airlines upset   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Boeing Company, Geni, the NTSB/CAB, Guido Allieri and the JTSB.

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   The flight deck of the An-124   The mighty Mryia, An-225, carrying a Buran project space shuttle   The destruction of a dream, the Mryia was a victim of the Russian invaders who recently attacked Ukraine   Oleg Antonov   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Antonov Design Bureau, the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, the Central Design Bureau for Gliders, Arpingstone, Igor Dvurekov, Dmitriy Pichugin, Toshi Aoki, Yevgeny Pashnin, Vasiliy Kob and Дизайнер: А.Безменов.  

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 armed aircraft ready to go onto QRA   The F4 tank limiting speeds   A Soviet Badger trying to sneak past at low level   An F4 tanking from a converted Victor V Bomber   Decimomannu Air Base   How the ACMI Air Combat Manoeuvering Instrumentation worked   The Men of Harlech near Llanbedr   The Jindavik target drone   A frame from the Jindavik cameras showing a Sidewinder about to impact the towed flare target   My new navigator, Coolhand   A 43(F) Sqn Phantom   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, the USAF, RuthAS and Mike Freer.

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 the young 22 year old airman with his flimsy little aircraft, but the gaunt and weathered Baron was well known to von Koenig-Warthausen! The Junkers W33   Ehrenfried Günther Freiherr von Hünefeld   Alcock and Brown preparing for their transatlantic flight   Posing in front of the W33 named Bremen   The Bremen damaged but safely across the Atlantic   The flimsy, lightweight Klemm L20B   The Klemm airborne   Baron Freidrich Carl von König-Warthausen   The Baron renamed his aircraft after his countryman Hünefeld   Images under a Creative Commons licence with thanks to Monika Hoerath, Tomas Mellies, MIKAN, The Bundesarchiv, Edward N. Jackson, L'Aéronautique magazine, John Underwood plus images in the Public Domain.

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   The Morton Lake hotshots   The dangers of a wildfire are considerable, even during an evacuation   The dangers of manoeuvring a big aircraft at low level are considerable   Other aircraft are converted into water bombers like this PBY-6A Catalina   Helicopters deliver water from buckets   One of the few purpose built water bombers, the Canadair Superscooper   The magnificent Mars water bomber   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, John McColgan, signal mirror, DarrenRD, Tim Peterson, the USN, SSgt Ed Drew, Pierre Bona and Alex Juorio.

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 Blue engagement   An AIM 54 Phoenix launch   An AIM7 Sparrow in flight   The APG63 radar   Radar discrimination     AIM7 Sparrow missiles on an F15 Eagle   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, USN, Daderot and the DOD Media.

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   The German R4M unguided air to air rocket   The nuclear AIR-2 Genie missile   A Genie launch   The AIM9 Sidewinder   The rotating reticule   The rolleron   Guidance   The warhead   An AIM 9 warhead effect demonstration   The AIM7 Sparrow   A QF4B killed by a Sparrow missile   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to images in the Public Domain, UK Defence Imagery, Wubei Zhi, NASA, Juergen Schiffmann, the USAF, David Monniaux, RoyKabanlit, U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation and the USN.