Today is National Aviation Day.

Set aside By President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 to honor and celebrate the development of Aviation. Appropriately it is observed on Orville Wright's birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ORVILLE WRIGHT

Normally I take-up the plane on special aviation days like this, just to ride around and soak-up the feeling of wonderment of soaring freely. But today my plane is in New Orleans with my partner. So I am earthbound. No matter I see some rather nasty looking thunderstorms building and that is one thing that I will NOT challenge.


Yesterday I posted about my interest in learning from accidents. I truly believe by learning what went wrong, and why, we can become safer. I have read litterlly thousands of accident reports, and they have revealed some surprising facts. Also there have been quiet a few strange events recorded, but last Saturday an accident occured that strange and unlikely as it seems, the thought gives me nightmares.

THIS IS A TRUE STORY... NOT A JOKE OR HOAX

This past Saturday at a small airshow in Colorado there was a midair collision between two aircraft, causing one to crash out of control while the other, heavily damaged managed to land safely. While horrorifing this seems pretty straight forward upon 1st glance. Fortunately no one was killed.
It seems that at the airshow a group of model enthusists were flying their VERY large r/c ( radio controlled ) airplane. They were over the runway as a manned stunt plane approached the area. At this point the show was under the direction of a man on the ground, the "Air Boss" who was talking on a handheld radio and supposedly clearing the airspace.
Well there seems to have been some type of breakdown in communication because the Stunt plane, a single seat Pitts biplane continued to fly down the runway while making a trail of smoke which is normal for airshows. It continues on making a high speed pass until it collides with the r/c plane.Following impact, the biplane continues flying, apparently under control , while the model tumbled to pieces falling off to the side of the runway. There were no injuries to anyone on the ground but the video does show the public were much too close to an active runway.

Without my trying to fix blame as to who was in the wrong, I need to note that the current FAA regulations dictate manned aircraft always have the right of way.
After regaining control of his aircraft the manned stunt plane returned to the runway making a safe landing. The pilot was shaken, but not injured. His plane however shows significant damage. The bottom wing of the Pitts aircraft has a huge dent in it making the plane unflyable until repaired.

The very large $8000 r/c model faired much worse. Here is the largest remaining hunk of it's wreckage. Things could have been much much worse. The collision could have brought down BOTH machines, debris from either or both aircraft could have injured or killed many in the crowd. the potential for harm was enormous.

The FAA accident team is investigating the event. It will be interesting to see how this investigation plays out. One lesson already seems obvious. Better communication could have helped.

The images from the airshow ( above ) are off a video shot by someone in the crowd.

• The 1st one is the r/c plane in an extreme nose up attitude seconds before the collision.

• Next the photo shows the Biplane just before impact

• In the 3rd shot the actual impact ( in the far right side of frame)

• And finally a photo showing the models damage from the collision.

I truly love flying. Some people don't. Maybe it's the fact that they are not totally in control. Or maybe it's as simple as fear of something unfamiliar. Once in a while accidents do happen, planes do crash. But statistics prove beyond doubt that flying is about the safest of transportation. Your chances of being in an air crash is so small it's almost unthinkable. Still being honest there is some risk involved with climbing into a metal, wooden and or fabric covered machine and soaring with the birds. Actually there are risks everywhere. Trains, cars, buses, even walking along introduces some level of risk into your life. That thought sometimes makes people want to just lie in bed with the covers pulled up around their necks, cowering at every unexplained sound. There is risk in that as well. Maybe the roof will fall, or maybe you'll drift off into a deep sleep, roll out of the bed and bump you head. There is Risk in everything.

In flying it is a pilots job to minimize the risks. He doesn't do it alone. There are mechanics, weather professionals, routing specialists, and many others to help him. Then there is training which can help reduce the risks and even help avoid most of them. I truly believe this training, works. It is helpful to practice. Learning to avoid or dodge risky actions, and by learning how to minimize others can help make flying or any activity safer. Knowing in advance what to do, how to react to situations, making a plan before the risk arises is a key to safer flying.

I believe there are lessons to be learned from every accident that ever happened. Learning what went wrong and why can help you avoid a similar situation and thereby reduce the risks. I feel so strongly about this that I spend a portion of every day reading aircraft accident reports. Searching for insights that may help me one day.

I have a LARGE collection of official accident reports. From all over the world. Some are just a few paragraphs others contain massive multi-part volumes. I have one report of an airliner accident that runs almost 3,000 pages.

The earliest report I have is of the first crash in history to be fatal to a passenger ( non crew member ). It was with the U.S. Army signal corp ( forerunner of the U.S. Air Force ) and it happened in the extreme early days of powered aviation when a Wright Brothers airplane piloted by Orville himself was giving a demonstration flight to the Army at Fort Myer, Virginia. An Army officer Lt. Thomas Selfridge was along for the ride as an observer. After a few circuits around the field something caused the propeller to break and the "Flyer" crashed nose first into the ground from about 150 feet. Lt. Selfridge died from a massive head injury several hours after the crash. Pilot Orville Wright suffered severe injuries, including a broken leg, several broken ribs and a hip injury. He was hospitalized for seven weeks.

I wrote this as an introduction / background for a series of blogs I have in the works.

I hope you will check back and read the updates, including my next entry. It's a story of a truly bizarre accident that occurred just last Saturday.

See you here

I was reading a story about the test flights of a new plane today. Like almost always when I am on-line one story leads to another and pretty soon I am in a totally unrelated place from my start. Today I was led to another article about the storage of retired airliners in the desert. This is just another area where I find acute interest. One of the planes featured in the article was the famous or infamous 'Gimli Glider'
Some of you may remember the tale of the almost new Boeing 767 jet that had to land on a dragstrip when it accidentally ran out of fuel on a flight. But to most of you the jetliner registered as C-GAUN was little more than a run-of-the-mill widebody plane.

The incident on the pride of Air Canada jets happened way back in 1983. I remember the actual day it happened. I poured over the news reports and later the official reports trying to learn how in that modern era, a high-tech long-range plane, like a 767 could run short on fuel on a domestic flight in good weather while crossing southern Canada. I am amazed at how it successfully imitated a 173 ton glider.


Even though it was 25 years ago (July 23, 1983) most old timers at Air Canada and around the aviation community remember the details well. It all started with the discovery of a problem with part of the aircraft's flight management system. Basically that is a problem with the fuel gauges. It was a bad electrical connection, a faulty soldering joint.

That by itself is not enough to ground a plane, because the fuel can be measured manually. But this led to several problems.

• First none of the ground crew trained to do so, but the pilots would recheck the numbers.

• This introduced the 2nd problem. The pilots used an incorrect conversion method. The ground crew had used imperial measurements to compute the 767's fuel load as was common in Canada. Air Canada & in fact the whole country was just beginning the process of changing over to the metric system. This Air Canada 767 the first plane set up with the new system. The difference between the amounts calculated was huge.
  

The flight took off and was progressing normally. But as it crossed high over Red Lake, Ontario, a warning signal in the cockpit sounded, and suddenly the flight crew realized the error.

One engine failed, followed soon by the other. As that happened the generators supplying power for the aircraft's glass-panel avionics stopped too. Quickly the battery went dead which left the 195 seat airliners powerless.

With only a few mechanical backup instruments and unboosted flight controls the plane was descending at 2,000 feet-per-minute.

The Good News

Call it fate or just serendipity but one of the pilots on board that day was Captain Robert Pearson, also an expert glider pilot. He enjoyed this hobby on his days off. Still even with that skill there was no hope of keeping the plane in the air all the way to Winnipeg. Fortunately the other pilot, the co-pilot First Officer Maurice Quintal had been a pilot in the Air Force and knew of an abandoned base near their flight path -- in Gimli, Manitoba -- where he had once served.


Using their limited instruments Captain Pearson and First Officer Quintal successfully glided the plane toward the runway at Gimli. But as they neared on their silent approach the crew saw that spectators and campers were spread out, watching go-cart races on the abandoned runway.

There was nothing they could do. They were committed.

Still on a short final the crew realized they were going too fast and were too high to make the field and stop safely. Captain Pearson, making use of his gliding skills did something some pilots thought impossible. He put the plane into a hard side slip. This maneuver would cause the aircraft to lose altitude quickly without increasing the speed. In fact with the nose slightly up it might even help slow them a little.

It was a firm landing and the plane's nose landing gear collapsed. They were now skidding quickly down the runway sending up a shower of sparks. Captain Pearson could see two boys bicycling on the runway, in front of them. They were pedaling like crazy " "My heart leapt into my throat." He remembers. "One of the boys stared straight back at me in the cockpit."

Fortunately, the plane missed the boys and other onlookers coming to a stop 100 feet from where the spectators had set up their campers. Miraculously there were no injuries on the ground, nor to the extra light load of 61 passengers and eight crew on board the plane.

The plane was repaired a few days later, safely refueled and flown out eventually returning to service.

Both Pilots continued to fly and 1985 received the first-ever Federation Aeronautique Internationale Diploma for Outstanding Airmanship.

C-GAUN may have been just another jetliner to most people. But when she was retired almost a quarter of a century later in 2008, she was a legend and a "proud lady of the skies".

This story was also told in a book I have owned and enjoyed several times, "Free Fall" and later it was made into a TV movie staring William Devane. I have a copy of that as well. Think I watch it again tonight.

Our flights will Never be late

Then again, we'll never actually be on time either.

When the thrill of being on an airplane matters then we've a flight for you.


Well not exactly a flight....

A retired Airline engineer is selling the 'ride'. With his tickets, you spend a few minutes on an Airbus A-300 jet plane that goes nowhere. It just sits. But people are lining up in droves.

The owner, Captain Bahudar Gupta, makes announcements about take off, landing etc, and his wife and five other crew members go up and own the aisle, serving snacks and drinks.

If any of the ‘passengers’ has to use the facilities, that could be a slight problem because the fuselage has no bathrooms. That is really not a big problem because the "flights" are under an hour each.

So pack you bags, gather the kids and head out on a "STAY CATION" by taking a flight to nowhere.

Snowbirds over Anderson II

The Golden Knights Parachute team Team RV

Solo Acts
USAF Thunderbolt II ( WartHog )













Golden Knights Fk-27 in a low pass

Show sights

They have arrived. The Snowbirds, the Golden Knights and the Warthog teams are here for tomorrows airshow.

Where: Anderson, South Carolina Airport ( KAND)
When : Tomorrow 13 May 2009 @ 3:30 pm ( 19:30 z ) gates open at 2:00 pm ( 18:00 )
Who:

• Team RV
• Greg Connell
• Gary Ward
• Golden Knights
• A-10 Demonstration
• Canadian Forces Snowbirds

Admission price: FREE


Website : Here





The photos were taken by me around 3 pm today at the airport . Except for the top one which was made from my back deck 15 minutes sooner

Guess who visited our airport .N583CC a Boeing 737-291
Of Pace Airlines operating as flight 3902 for it's return to Raleigh-Durham North Carolina, a 43 minute flight.

Pace is a charter carrier based in North Carolina and was here with the visiting Duke University Basketball team.
Seldom see heavy metal of this size in Anderson.

An interesting note. In normal airline service these planes usually have around 110 seats.

N583CC is unique because it is configured specially for Sports charters with 36 plush seats. Which is pretty nice I suspect if you happen to be over 6 1/2 feet tall.

Yesterday I was involved in a unique and interesting experiment. A couple weeks ago I was chosen to be one of the subjects to participate in an aviation weather study. I am very committed to safety especially in and around airplanes. I believe education can make a difference in accident rates. I try to attend every flying related class and seminar I can, so I was thrilled to be involved.

Yesterday's session was held in one of the computer science labs at Clemson University. Oh my what a dream place for computer geeks. I guess I am one of those because I couldn't help grinning like a nerd. There were computers of every shape and description. Some were running the most stunning programming I've ever seen.

After filling out the basic forms answering simple questions I was placed in front of a really large very interesting monitor. It had tracking camera(s) mounted within its borders. Around the edges. The camera(s) were to track my eye movements as I looked at the images to be shown on the screen. You may have seen or used something like that before but I was amazed. (Btw I did not use the chin rest shown in the photo.)

In the first part I was shown a series of aerial photos all weather related and asked if I would continue my flight based on what I saw. The tracking would show which parts of the images I looked at and for how long before making my choice.

After that I was asked to take a computer based weather course. I had completed something like this before so it was a snap. Completing that I was then shown another set of images. Again tracking the area of my gaze. There were several more studies some computer based and some with a tutor. Finally I was shown the first set of photos again and my answers compared.

There will be more of this study in the coming weeks, but I admit it was a blast.




.

I wonder where he works now.

July 21^st was not a good day for William. He is a mechanic with Atlantic SouthEast Airlines (the Delta Connection) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His normal day is checking, repairing and testing Jet engines on the $21 Million dollar Canadair Regional Jetliners operated by ASA.

What started as a routine day turned into a big expensive mess for poor Bill. They were simply washing the compressor section of an engine on a 70 seat jet. You only do this job when the engine is running at idle. Suddenly the engine spooled up to nearly full power and the plane jumped the chocks designed only to prevent it from rolling when parked. Tearing across the ramp it collided into two parked 50 seat jets. All three aircraft sustained serious damage and may have to be scrapped entirely. Luckily none of the mechanics working around the area were injured. But a lot of money was lost in just a few seconds.

I wonder if unlucky William is now flipping burgers at the local drive in.

New Seaplane service to Chicago's O'Hare Airport.


Aren't these interesting shots ?

We need rain but not like this.

A hiker has found the wreckage of Steve Fossett’s plane. He’s been missing for more than a year after he took off on a routine flight on Sept. 3, 2007. The sheriff’s office has confirmed the plane was Fossett’s. It appears he flew head-on into the mountain side, near Mammoth Lakes, California Most of the plane a small two seat Bellanca was destroyed upon impact. The main portion of the wreckage was found around 9,700 up the side of a 10,000 foot plus peak. The crash was a nonsurvivable.

The Transportation Safety Board will use a team to recover the wreckage as an aid to try to determine the reason for the crash. The investigation could take several weeks or maybe even months.

I will be following the investigation as it progresses and will be very interested in the final report.

Another catch-up post :

On Friday dad had another appointment with his regular neurologist. The doctor was happy with the progress of dads recovery. Dad just started on solid food and is regaining his strength daily. Dr Pitt stated he would like to transfer dad to an aggressive rehab center soon. With his continuing improvements and as the brain swelling reduces this may happen shortly.

Great news.

A visit to dads doctors takes me about eight hours including travel time. So that about filled the day.

On Saturday after the rain ended and things dried out I began the task of cutting and cleaning-up the damage area from the tree in my yard. This was a much bigger job than I expected and I was exhausted by nightfall.

On Sunday we had a special event at my church. NewSpring hosted the Christian musical group DecembeRadio who played all four services in Anderson and were broadcast to our Greenville location. I was part of the production team for that special event and worked all four services. The entire day required about a 15 hour commitment. But I loved it and would not have missed it for anything. I'll post my tells and photos of the day later.

Monday was spent recovering from Friday, Saturday and Sunday, along with catching up on my much neglected job. Thankfully I make a great boss, but I am underpaid. ( I'm self employed ) After Kristie got home I resumed the tree clean-up. Operating a chain saw while home alone is not something I wanted to do so I only had an hour or two of light.

Today I drove to my mothers house to help with a few odd jobs around the house and to help her at the insurance and medicare offices. It is beginning to look like dad will be fully recovered and home before the paperwork mountain is climbed. Forms after forms still to be completed.

Tonight I have another aviation safety class to attend in Greenville. I am using a record amount of gas just at a time when there are supply issues all around me. I passed several stations today that were closed because of the fuel shortage.

BTW I am still working on the tree clean-up. Maybe I'll get it cleaned up before the first snow <>

Shades of Willy Wonka.

I read where a flight attendant with Air France won a trip into space.

She bought the Kit Kat candy bar and after glancing at the contest details tossed it into the trash. After a couple hours she got to thinking why not try her luck. Digging the wrapper out of her trashcan she indeed found the winning code inside.

Nestle candy in France has confirmed she truly won a flight in the four-seat, tiny aircraft built by Rocketplane, a company that builds aircraft intended to provide cheap flights into space.
She will receive four days of astronaut training in Oklahoma City in the United States before boarding the Rocketplane XP aircraft which will reach an altitude of 100 km (60 miles) and allow a five-minute experience of weightlessness.
I could go for that myself

All decked out after my return to the skies

Delta Flight "ABC", Melbourne tower, advise go-around. Runway is closed due to catfish obstruction.

Huh ??

A Delta Airlines flight had to delay it's landing and circle the field Last Wednesday because catfish, yes catfish were strolling across the runway. You read that right I said catfish, walking across a runway. The walking catfish (Clarias batrachus) which can use their pectoral fins to propel themselves in an upright position, were a result of floodwaters caused by Tropical Storm Fay and ended up on the runway.

Airport crews also found to two tortoises, a snake and ...surprise an alligator lurking on the pavement as well.

After they were removed the plane landed without further incident.

In all my flying I have encountered cars, and work crews, rabbits, deer , turkeys and once a child on a bicycle. But never in my wildest dreams would I expect to see a fish strolling across the runway.