Lone Star One, a 737-300 that was one of Southwest Airlines first uniquely liveried planes, has been retired.
Southwest Airlines announced this week that one of its special 737s would be retired. Lone Star One, N352SW, a 737-300, has been pulled out of service.
The plane made its debut in November 1990 and was the first Southwest aircraft to feature a state flag – the Texas state flag, in recognition of its home state.
The plane is retiring but the airline said that a new Lone Star One will make its debut later this summer. This time on a 737-700NG aircraft.
The Dallas-based airline has a rich history in distinctive color schemes for selected planes in its fleet. Southwest’s first special livery aircraft made its debut on May 23, 1988. The 737-300 (N334SW) was painted as a Killer Whale from nose to tail, in partnership with Sea World of Texas.
The Lone Star livery was second in line. The airline has partnered with the NBA, Sports Illustrated for its swimsuit issue and has celebrated the states it serves with state-flag liveries.
Boston Airborne posted a video of it flying in the Northeast just 10 months ago. Today, it is at its final resting place in Tuscon, Arizona waiting to be parted out and cut for scrap.
These Air National Guard F-4 Phantoms provide some thrilling action with their powerful low-level passes.
If you … love the smell of jet fuel in the morning.
And if your morning starts with an alarm sound that’s the roar of a fighter engine at full throttle.
Then this video is for you.
Most videos like this one, which last five minutes, is accompanied by some sort of musical sound track (probably Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” from “Top Gun.”) And, apparently the original version did have a musical background.
But these F-4 Phantoms of the Reno Air National Guard making dozens of low-level passes at full throttle needed ambient sound. So, the musical sound track was ditched for this version of the video – which captures the F-4s breaking the sound barrier.
For those needing a little historical background, here’s the 411 on the F-4.
The Phantom is a two-seat, twin engine supersonic fighter that was developed my McDonnell Douglas. The F-4 was a fighter/bomber that proved its versatility during the Vietnam War. Originally developed for the Navy, it was so popular that the Air Force and the Marines each adapted a version.
When it first debuted, the F-4 set 15 different world records. The Phantom proved it could arrive quickly and in a bad mood. It could reach Mach 2.2 and could lug more than 18,000 pounds of weapons on nine external hard points.
Sure it’s a little bit of a stretch for Avgeekery.com but we’re pretty sure that any video with Danger Zone in it is fair game.
Aerial combat (well, space combat, actually) from Star Wars movies with the “Danger Zone” soundtrack by Kenny Loggins? Kick the tires and light the fires, we’re there.
Two years after Star Wars hit theaters in 1977, Kenny Loggins scored a Grammy with his single “This Is It.” And then in 1986 Loggins had the theme song for “Top Gun.”
How are these movie/music facts connected? They’re not.
At least not until someone had the brilliant idea to take Loggins’ “Danger Zone” – the hard-driving, perfect song from the 1980s hit – and use it as the musical backdrop for the video of spaceships clashing in the various Star Wars flicks. Shout out to Weston Wong for a masterful job of melding the music with the video.
Which brings to mind these questions:
Even though the battles between the good guys and the bad guys flying X-wings and TIE fighters take place in space and in a galaxy far, far away … are they still classified as dogfights?
Luke Skywalker is a great name, but he didn’t have a nickname like Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, did he?
If Luke “used the force” did Maverick use the force of Goose’s dog tags?
If not for Kenny Loggins’ songs, would “Top Gun,” “Footloose” and “Caddy Shack have been the big hits they were?
Whatever happened to Kenny Loggins?
Star Wars has been part of seven different sequels/prequels – why hasn’t Hollywood decided to crank out a “Top Gun II?”
That’s Peter Finch, who won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of mentally ill newscaster Howard Beale in the great 1970s movie “Network.” His rant would be a perfect theme for air passengers this summer.
With the summer travel season approaching and the United States’ commercial airlines gearing up for full-capacity flights, the specter of nightmarish-long security lines has air carriers and airports ready for the complaints.
Most of those disgruntled passengers take out their frustrations on the airlines – especially if the security line causes them to miss a flight – or the airport itself. Complaining to the TSA is likely to lead to a strip search. The procedures have barely changed and aren’t any speedier than when the security was ramped up after 9-11.
Congress spent three hours putting TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger on the hot seat Thursday about the dysfunction of the organization he runs and the long lines facing passengers.
Delta has offered to assign some of its staffers to help the TSA this summer. The TSA is warning that staffing shortages and a lack of funds to pay for overtime will create a lack of manpower at check points.
“The customers don’t distinguish security when coming through the airport between Delta and TSA,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said during a recent media event at its Atlanta headquarters. “Security is something that, in our opinion, is a joint responsibility of both TSA and the airline, and we will do our share to help.”
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey – which is in charge of the three major airports in the New York City area – along with Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport have sent scathing letters (yeah, those always work, don’t they?) to the TSA that if the screening process isn’t improved, they’re prepared to privatize the passenger screening process.
The Atlanta airport is working with Delta Air lines and TSA to experiment with Innovation Lines at Hartsfield. The new procedures are similar to the systems being used at London’s Heathrow and Amsterdam’s Schiphol airports.
Two I-Lines are scheduled to come on line at Atlanta’s south domestic terminal checkpoint later this month. Here’s how they work:
Baggage bins automatically move to a separate conveyor belt if a TSA agent IDs them as suspicious.
Baggage bins automatically recirculate after they move through the security machine.
The I-Line includes special “divestiture” areas where passengers can take off shoes, belts, etc. at their own pace.
Of course, the irony is that last week the lines at the Atlanta airport were even longer – the TSA closed the south security checkpoint for three weeks of testing of the new I-Lines. Progress can indeed be painful.
If the program is successful in Atlanta, it could be implemented at other airports. Until then, the frustrations will remain high.
The New York/New Jersey Port Authority letter to the TSA mentioned the “inadequacy of TSA passenger screening,” fears of widespread “customer dissatisfaction” and described wait times as “abysmal.”
From mid-March to mid-April, there were hundreds of times that passenger waits lasted more than 20 minutes – and sometimes more than 55 minutes, the letter said.
You can blame carry-on bags, the TSA, or the cheap fares. The bottom line is that it doesn’t look like lines are getting shorter anytime soon.
Bringing back an original color scheme and look for a Piedmont aircraft.
Piedmont Airlines, which began flying under the American Eagle brand in October of 2015 after the merger of American Airlines and US Airways, which became final in 2013. The regional airline serves Philadelphia plus three other locations in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland.
American Eagle repainted one of its Dash 8 fleet carriers in the Piedmont original colors and debuted the new color scheme this week.
The original Piedmont has a rich history. It first flew in 1961. In the 1980s, it rapidly expanded on the east coast of the US before being purchased by US Air. US Air, later US Airways, renamed one of its regional subsidiaries as as Piedmont. Today, they fly a fleet of Dash 8s and EMB-145s under the American Eagle brand.
This lightweight 757 does a low-level fly-by followed by a cloud-piercing climb.
If you are an avgeek, you’ll love watching this video. We’re suckers for unrestricted climbs of our favorite aircraft. The 757 is definitely on the list.
The 757 was developed to take the place of the popular 727. A narrow-body, single-aisle commercial aircraft, it was designed for airlines facing higher fuel prices. The new plane’s design used lighter materials and featured better aerodynamics.
Plus, the twin-engine design improved fuel efficiency. The 757 was built to save 20 percent of fuel consumption. The power-to-weight ratio made it possible for it to operate from shorter runways plus serve airports where the air was hotter and thinner.
The 757 Is an Overpowered beast of an airliner
The 757 was a narrow-body aircraft with a high-lift wing and the power plants capable of carrying a hefty load of freight and cargo. When this lightly-configured jet with new Rolls Royce engines was allowed to go full throttle and head for the ceiling, it could put on quite an impressive show.
This video was posted on Youtube by Historical Machines TV. We’re grateful for them posting some beautiful footage.
Bonus video below!
Additional video of another performance was posted on Youtube by roderm. See the video below.
For 50 years, NASA’s Super Guppy transport aircraft has carried and delivered over-sized cargo to keep the space program moving.
There are aircraft that are inherently beautiful and graceful. Either on the tarmac or in flight, they elicit admiring glances.
To be quite frank and blunt, the Super Guppy isn’t one of those aircraft.
It’s swollen fuselage, from a side view, does give it a fish-like appearance. But as typically the case in a plane that has an unusual appearance, this plane has been modified for a specific purpose. It transports oversized components for NASA and has been on the job for half a century. From Saturn booster rockets to the Hubble Telescope, the Guppy has swallowed and moved cargo that has helped keep the space program moving.
Early versions were modified from the C-97J Turbo Stratocruiser. Later versions were constructed from scratch, using only the cockpit, wings, tail, and main landing gear. A four-engine turboprop, the Super Guppy also has had engine modifications to improve power and range.
This aircraft also features full frontal … cargo loading. A unique hinged nose swings open 110 degrees to permit easy loading and off-loading.
This particular Super Guppy mission was a four-hour flight between between Ellington Field, Texas and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The cargo was a Crew Compartment Trainer for the Space Shuttle to be displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.
The A-29 Super Tucano has the qualities needed for effective ground support in this era of modern warfare … so let’s add it to the U.S. arsenal.
Place this in the “Everything Old Is New Again” file.
Modern warfare, in particular the fight against terrorism, has created a new demand for a ground support military aircraft. The A-10 Warthog continues to be outstanding in its role of providing accurate fire and weapons on enemy ground positions.
But going back to a single-engine, propeller driven, ground support attack aircraft makes sense – even if it resembles the war birds that flew during World War II.
The development of the A-29 Super Tucano, also known as the Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano has provided a ground attack plane that can get the job done. Unfortunately, as this story points out, Congress failed to OK the funding for the Air Force to add the A-29 to its arsenal.
So why a turboprop plane? The A-29 can fly at low speed at low altitude and operate in desert-like heat. It also has the fuel capacity and economy to stay on station for long periods of time. The Super Tucano can be configured in single-seat and twin-seat models.
The A-29 has .50 cal machine guns (one in each wing), and features five hard points under the wing and a fuselage that can carry up to 3,300 pounds of additional weapons. The hard points also can be configured to carry auxiliary fuel tanks.
The A-29 is also cheaper to operate, requiring about $1,000 per hour in the air. By contrast, the A-10 costs about $11,500 per hour while the controversial F-35 Joint Strike Fighter costs about $30,000 per hour of flight.
In January, the Afghan Air Force (AAF) acquired four A-29s, the first of 20 set to be delivered over the course of the next few years.
“The A-29 light attack aircraft is a versatile aircraft that brings a number of critical capabilities to the AAF,” said U.S. Army Colonel Michael T Lawhorn, director of public affairs for NATO’s Operation ‘Resolute Support’ in Afghanistan, said. “These include close air support, armed escort, and armed over watch.”
If the Defense Department is resolute in its desire to eventually retire A-10s from active service, it should ask ground troops what sort of close-support aircraft they would prefer to replace it with knowing that the other options are the F-35 or a limited number of F-16s. Given the choice between nothing and a capable weapons system, they’d probably vote for the A-29. Too bad that’s not the process.
A company in England that helps fight oil spills has converted two Boeing 727s to serve as chemical-dispersing delivery aircraft.
Ocean oil spills can be disastrous to the environment. When a significant amount of oil is accidentally released, the response time is critical. Before the spill spreads, containment and chemical dispersing are two of the main weapons.
Chemical solutions are used to break up the slicks into smaller droplets, which are then mixed by the water’s natural movement. Delivering those solutions early helps to prevent large slicks from reaching shore and fouling beaches.
Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL), a company based in England, as converted two Boeing 727s to serve as quick-response delivery systems to fly to the site of a spill and spray oil dispersant chemicals.
The 727s, previously owned by FedEx, have had to undergo significant alterations to gain compliance. The United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) ruled that the dispersant liquid used to break up oil slicks should be treated as flammable. That led to the aircraft being classified to carry flammable cargo.
The advantage of using aircraft to deliver oil-dispersant chemicals are obvious. First, they can arrive much quicker than ships that are sent to do the same job. Previously, ORSL used Hercules transports but the 727 has a definite speed and range advantage over the four-engine propeller-driven transports.
OSRL has one 727 that will be loaded with oil dispersant chemicals and on-call 24-7. The other 727 will be used to deliver cargo to help defer the company’s expenses but can quickly be converted to serve as another delivery system.
In the video below by miar2006, you can clearly see the spray bar below. Eat your heart out Chemtrail fans!
(If you’re into the technical aspects, here’s the company report on the 727 project.)
We continued our love fest with the venerable Baby Boeing 737-200.
The week that was – a compilation of Avgeekery.com stories and videos from the last seven days.
Happy Mothers Day, Avgeeks! Don’t forget to call your mom. Here are two stories this week that honor women who did the extraordinary.
JetBlue offered another great promotion for passengers on a recent flight by turning tears into cheers.
Our weekly “Flashback Friday” tells the little-known story of the women whose math skills helped launch our space program.
—————
With the passage of another week, Avgeekery.com looks back and offers a one-stop post that shares all of the other stories and videos posted during the last seven days that our readers loved. Just click and enjoy.
Would you be surprised to know that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the cutting edge of commercial aircraft, is equipped with a … propeller?
An experienced pilot recalls his time flying the 737-200 – a “pilot’s airplane.”
A wonderful documentary worth your time about the “Silent Wings” – courageous glider pilots in World War II.
This Chicago-area skydiving club got a rare treat – jumping from the bomb bay of a World War II-era B-17.
The Lockheed Super Constellation’s four engines give a new definition to the term “flame out.”
A decade ago, WestJet celebrated the retiring of its 737-200 aircraft with a double fly-by buzzing of the airport tower.
The versatility of the 747 is displayed as “The Spirit of John Muir” debus as the world’s largest fire-fighting aircraft.
The C-17 Globemaster proved its “off-road” capability by making a delivery on a dirt runway.
JetBlue offered another great promotion for passengers on a recent flight by turning tears into cheers.
Did you know that the 787 can deploy a propellor underneath its fuselage? It’s called a Ram Air Turbine or RAT.
Not the furry animal, silly. The 787 Ram Air Turbine is a propellor that provides an auxiliary source of electrical power in the case of dual engine failure.
If you look closely at the video below, you’ll see that this video shows testing of the Dreamliner 787 ram air turbine (RAT). It’s a small propeller installed on each side of the fuselage that can be used as an additional source of power in the event of a dual engine loss.
Photo by Boeing.
It generates its power from the airstream by ram pressure. The RAT is meant only as an emergency power source for the aircraft in the event that both engines fail. It provides enough electrical power to power only one of the 3 electric hydraulic systems on the jet. If you have to use it for real, you are having a really bad day.
787’s Ram Air Turbine Is Tested Regularly
The RAT is tested before delivery. It’s also tested occasionally during revenue service. Once the RAT is deployed, it can’t be retracted. It has to be stowed by maintenance personnel after landing.
The Dreamliner is an amazing aircraft, but it has had its fair share of problems, even lately. We reported recently on Avgeekery.com, that the FAA is requiring some Dreamliner engines to be replaced as part of an emergency directive.
Icing issues on certain models of the General Electric engines on Dreamliner led to the Federal Aviation Agency to issue a directive to “urgently modify” those engines.
The General Electric engine model GEnx-1B PIP2 is in question. Planes that are equipped with both engines of that model could potentially experience a catastrophic loss of both engines in flight.
Wailing babies on a long flight are enough to make grown-ups cry but this JetBlue promotion turned tears into tickets.
Anyone who flies commercially understands that it’s best to expect the unexpected. Weather delays, mechanical issues, flight crews arriving late because their flight was late are among the curve balls that can make for a miserable travel experience.
And if you’re a parent who is traveling with young children – babies especially – you brace for the challenges of making sure the young ones don’t scream/cry for a three-hour trip. If your child decides being at 35,000 feet is going to make his/her inner ears hurt, you’re in for the longest flight of your life.
Credit JetBlue with another great promotion (this one from a few months ago was chronicled on Avgeekery.com). On April 15, the airline offered a “FlyBabies” promotion on a flight from New York City’s JFK to Long Beach, Calif.
Flight attendants announced that on that flight “crying babies” would be a good thing. For each crying baby, JetBlue would offer all the passengers on the flight a 25 percent discount. Four criers equaled a free flight for each passenger.
After the first wail, the passengers started cheering and clapping each time a baby started to cry. By the time the plane landed after the seven-hour flight, all 140 passengers had earned a free roundtrip ticket on JetBlue.
“We weren’t necessarily sure what to expect from folks on board, it was interesting to watch,” JetBlue spokesperson Morgan Johnston said. “We started seeing people really want to entertain the kids and make it a comfortable environment on board.
“We’ve had this ongoing mission to inspire some humanity, and we thought this was something we could weigh in on.”
The airline and its advertising agency has turned the video from the flight into a Mother’s Day commercial that it hopes brings awareness to the stress parents feel when they’re traveling with toddlers.
“People smile at babies everywhere, except on planes,” said Elizabeth Windram, JetBlue’s director brand management and advertising (and a mother of a toddler). “For Mother’s Day, we wanted to acknowledge how moms (indeed all parents and caregivers) often feel stressed while traveling with children.”
Two thumbs up for JetBlue for the clever promotion of their airline and for making people aware that cute babies cry sometimes when stuck on a seven-hour flight.
Rugged and versatile, the C-17 Globemaster doesn’t need a paved runway to make deliveries.
The C-17 Globemaster can be considered a master of its domain. The four-engine transport is the perfect component for the modern U.S. military and its ability to rapidly deploy troops and equipment anywhere in the world.
The Globemaster can also be described as the four-wheel off-road vehicle of the U.S. air fleet. It’s rugged enough that it doesn’t need a paved runway. The C-17 doesn’t mind getting dirty.
This video is a prime example of the C-17 delivering cargo to an area that is near the front lines. A hard-packed dirt runway is sufficient for both landing and takeoff.
The C-17 has the cargo space to deliver a 69-ton M-1 Abrams battle tank. But on this mission, the cargo is a Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. The Globemaster’s cargo bay can be converted to handle either pallet cargo or rolling stock like the Apache.
The AH-64 is versatile in that there’s some assembly required after delivery. Being able to stow and transporter a helicopter requires attaching the four blades after landing. The ground crew also must work as a team to de-plane the copter as even with the large accommodation of the C-17’s interior, it’s a tight fit.
In the early days of that helped launch our space program, “Rocket Girls” served as human computers.
If you’re searching for a last-minute Mother’s Day gift (if so, shame on you) and the lady in your life likes to read about trail blazing women, there’s a great book available.
Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars tells the story that few people know about. While the machines that have helped the United States lead the way in exploration are called “man-made” there was a group of women who in the early days were human computers.
During World War II, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was ground zero for research into the rocket power that would eventually help the American space program break the bonds of earth. What eventually became NASA was staffed by a number of women whose “beautiful minds” could crunch numbers. In those days, making calculations of speed, direction and power had to be done by hand.
In the words of Macie Roberts, one of the women working the problems with bulky calculators, pencils and graph paper, the criteria was: “look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man and work like a dog.”
Author Nathalia Holt spent hours trying to track down the women who worked at JPL in the early days. While Holt says that “something magical happened there” it wasn’t without familiar challenges.
“There (are stories of) sexual harassment in the book—aeronautical engineering is a very male-dominated field, even today— but this was a strong group of women with a woman supervisor,” Holt said. “I think they did a remarkable job looking out for each other. And the men at the lab came to accept them as colleagues. Some male engineers even brought them onto studies and included them as co-authors on publications. At the time that was not common at all, and it really changed their career options.
“Most of the women I talked to felt very strongly about the role of mentoring the next generation.”
Even when the computers became more sophisticated to help with the calculations, women continued to have a tremendous behind-the-scenes impact on the space program. This book helps shed some light on their contributions.
“In a time before the digital devices that we’re used to today, it was humans that were doing the calculations,” Holt said. “And so you needed these teams of people — many of whom were women, especially during World War II — and they were responsible for the math.
“There is hardly a mission that you can find in NASA that these women haven’t touched.”
It’s a bird … it’s a plane … no, it’s Super Tanker, a 747 converted to the world’s largest fire-fighting aircraft.
With most 747s being retired as commercial airliners, the history-making four-engine jet still has several valuables uses. A few months ago, Avgeekery.com wrote about seven ways that the 747 is being re-purposed. One of those involved its possible use to fight forest fires.
Here’s what we wrote then:
Evergreen International Aviation, a company based in Oregon, converted four 747 cargo planes into aircraft that could deliver nearly 20,000 gallons of water and/or fire retardant chemicals. The company hoped to use its big plans to drop big loads to help fight fires.
Alas, the business model never worked out as government agencies preferred to continue using smaller planes. Evergreen filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Last year, Global SuperTanker Services, LLC stepped in and took over Evergreen’s planes and plans. The use and effectiveness of 747 super tankers has yet to be determined.
That determination has now happened.
The Spirit of John Muir will officially make its debut Thursday at its home base in Colorado Springs, Colo. (John Muir, also known as “John of the Moutains,” was a Scottish-American naturalist who in the second half of the 19th century was an advocate for preserving the United States’ wilderness.)
Global SuperTanker Services, LLC converted the B747-400 freighter into the world’s newest Very Large Air Tanker (VLAT). It has almost twice the capacity of the next biggest aerial tanker. It can carry 20,000 gallons of water or fire retardant which can be released in single or multiple drops at variable rates. That allows the plane to deliver its payload in a tailored response to the firefighting needs.
Last year more than 10 million acres burned in the worst wildfire season in American history. The fire season is about to start again and there are warnings that 2016 could be worse.
The John Muir will stand at the ready and from its base in Colorado Springs will be able to quickly reach fires in the western United States.
“The Spirit of John Muir differs from other firefighting planes not just because it is capable of variable rate drops,” said Jim Wheeler, President and CEO of Global SuperTanker, “as the world’s largest aerial firefighting asset, the John Muir can fly 600 miles per hour for long ranges at efficient altitudes, reaching and combatting any fire in the Western U.S. in less than three hours.”
Wheeler points out that destructive wildfires are becoming a global problem. The John Muir can fly anywhere in the world in under 20 hours.
Want to watch the video? Input password: GlobalSuperTanker
What’s it like to fly a low pass in the old Boeing 737-200? This WestJet pilot shares his exhilarating story.
Back in 2006, WestJet was a much smaller airline that was in a full-fledged transition process to the airline it has become today. While most major North American Airlines had retired their 737-200 in the first half of last decade, they held on to them a little longer while they waited for 737-600 and 737-700s to arrive.
When the time finally came to retire the -200 fleet, WestJet authorized a crew to do a final flyby for a photo opportunity. After coordination with tower, they did two flybys followed by an impressive unrestricted climb before entering a pattern for a final approach.
Members of a Chicago skydiving club experienced a unique thrill by exiting through the bomb bay of a B-17 Flying Fortress.
The B-17 Flying Fortress was one of the crucial components to the Allies’ victory in World War II. The B-17 was rugged enough to survive punishment as the flight groups flew bombing missions over Europe.
In the early days of daylight bombing, the Fortresses flew over Germany without fighter escorts and had to survive the onslaught of flack and enemy fighters on the inbound and outbound portions of the missions.
Groups like the Collings Foundation Wings of Freedom have restored WWII-era aircraft. In this video, a B-17 was used to provide members of the Chicagoland Skydiving Center a unique parachute experience.
This “bombing run” allowed the sky divers to exit the B-17 through the bomb bay. Plus, the parachutists were able to experience what it was like for the airmen who flew the Flying Fortress. We would call that a double dip.
By the way, the background song for this video is “Blood Upon The Risers,” a marching song used by American paratroopers during training. Based on the song “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” the refrain is “Gory, Gory, What A Helluva Way To Die.”
We assume the song was added in post-production for this video. These aren’t the sort of lyrics a sky diver wants to hear as he hurtles himself out of a perfectly good airplane. (But if somehow this song WAS played on the B-17 mission, it’s highly doubtful anyone would have heard it over the roar of the four engines.
And by the way, part two: The second half of the video features the song “We’ll Meet Again.” It was one of the favorite songs of WWII because of its optimistic message.
Glider pilots are unknown heroes of World War II. Their bravery is captured in the documentary “Silent Wings”.
Back in the summer of 2000, I was a brand new sophomore (or three degree) at the Air Force Academy. As a cadet, you get a three week summer break followed by 6 weeks of air force training before you go back to school. I had just completed a miserable three week period of survival training in the woods. I looked forward to my final air force training class for the summer–flying gliders.
I’m in the back of the mighty TG-4, smiling after having just completed my instructor upgrade check ride.
Just three summers earlier, I was working at K-Mart–earning $4.75 an hour to pay for flying. Working there wasn’t much fun. I’m pretty sure I’d rather do survival training repeatedly–even without food–versus getting yelled at by a high school-educated manager to clean out a filthy restroom as the Eagles song “Take it Easy” blared over the K-Mart Radio Network speakers for the 100th time. That job paid for my flight lessons though and helped me get into the Air Force Academy.
I didn’t mind the 4:40am wakeup to board the bus to the airfield by 5:00am. For the first time in my life, I was finally getting paid to fly. In my mind, I had arrived. I learned the basics of unpowered flight that summer and quickly soloed the mighty TG-4. During my sophomore year, I would learn how to instruct in the TG-4 (Schweizer SGS 2-33) and earned my glider wings.
Troop carrier Douglas C-47s tow Waco CG-4A gliders during the invasion of France in June 1944. (U.S. Air Force photo)
It was after I earned my wings that I began to realize the gravity of the long-storied history of “G”-wings. Our speaker that day at the dining out was Lt Col Floyd Sweet (his obituary can be read here) who spoke with eloquence as he recalled his time training hundreds of combat glider pilots during World War II.
I realized at that dining out that I was wearing the same wings as heroes like LtCol Sweet and his trainees wore. Sixty years earlier, men with more guts in their pinky finger than my entire body on my best day flew unpowered airplanes over Nazi-controlled territory with amazing bravery. They guided a canvas plane that was difficult to fly, with no armor, and tried their best to land it in enemy territory on a field that was often defended with telephone poles that could rip a glider in half. My wings meant that as one of the few glider pilots in the Air Force, I was now part of that same legacy. Sure their wartime mission was a far cry from our ‘mission’ of training young cadets over the relatively safe skies of Colorado Springs. But we took immense pride as being part of that long blue line of glider pilots.
DAYTON, Ohio – Waco CG-4A at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force (U.S. Air Force photo)
After I graduated from USAFA, I went on to fly Learjets and then C-17s. I still had a special place in my heart for the WWII glider pilots. From time to time, I would spend a Saturday afternoon searching the web for an interesting story or book about them. I recently came across a documentary online that shares glider pilots’ stories of heroism better than I ever could.
“Silent Wings” documentary tells the often ignored story of the role gliders and their pilots played during World War II.
Even if you consider yourself an expert and well-versed on World War II, this documentary is worth your time.
“Silent Wings: The American Glider Pilots of World War II” tells the story of the brave men who piloted gliders. The Waco CG-4A combat glider was constructed of wood, metal and a canvas covering. It had a pilot and a co-pilot and could carry 13 troops or could also carry a Jeep, a 75 mm howitzer or a ¼-ton trailer.
Approximately 5,000 pilots were in the glider program, which saw action in Sicily, Burma, Normandy (D-Day), Southern France, Holland (Operation Market Garden) and Bastogne (Battle of the Bulge) and Germany.
On D-Day, gliders played a key role and many of the Waco gliders lived up to their nickname – the Flying Coffin. But those who were able to successfully land were able to bring troops and equipment behind enemy lines to support the invasion of the Normandy beaches. Gutsy glider pilots are part of the reason that we are free today.
This documentary is narrated by Hal Holbrook and two great CBS newsmen are interviewed.
As Andy Rooney explained, “Gliders were a completely expendable piece of equipment … landing was a planned accident and you hoped you survived the accident.” And Walter Cronkite described the deafening noise of riding inside a glider because of the canvas covering. “It was like being inside a drum at a Grateful Dead concert.”
We owe much to these brave men. Without much fanfare, they did their job and kept America free through their strength and sheer guts.
Avgeekery guest blogger Robert Graves writes another excellent post on his experiences flying the small but mighty Boeing 737-200.
The Boeing Model 737 is considered one of the most successful airliners ever built. Boeing has built nearly 9000 of these aircraft since its introduction in 1968 with thousands of more orders on the books. Currently Boeing’s only narrow body aircraft in production, the 737 has been produced in seven variants over the years, the -100 through -700, including the 737-200. The next iteration, the Max-8, is currently undergoing flight testing and is scheduled for delivery to launch customer Southwest Airlines next year.
image via aero icarus
I flew the 737-200 in both the left and right seat from the time I was hired until my airline retired the aircraft from the fleet in the early 2000s. I have many thousands of hours of time in this aircraft and really enjoyed flying her. The 737-200 was a pilot’s airplane, meaning that she was responsive and easy to fly. It was easy to put the airplane where you wanted her and once you learned the tricks to make a smooth landing such as the “roll-on”, she was a real cream puff.
image via aero icarus
The 200 had her drawbacks as well. Being underpowered was one of the greatest frustrations. When Boeing introduced this aircraft as the -100 model, it came equipped with Pratt and Whitney JT8D-7 engines producing about 14,000 lbs of thrust. This aircraft was so underpowered that it was not even allowed to use full flaps to land as there was too much drag. The 100 model was quickly replaced by the 737-200 model, which offered the upgraded JT8D-9 engines producing 15,500 lbs of thrust. I only flew the aircraft with the -9 engines. Still, she was kind of a pig.
image via nick young
Don’t Shut Off the APU!
Taking off of short runways was always kind of exciting. One procedure with which all 737-200 pilots had to become intimately familiar was the “bleeds off” takeoff. During normal operations, hot, compressed or “bleed” air is drawn out of the engine to run the air conditioning and to provide pressurization. When taking off from a short runway on a hot day, drawing that bleed air means that it isn’t available to produce thrust. So one method to increase thrust from the engines was to turn the bleeds off and to use air from the auxiliary power unit (APU) for air conditioning until getting airborne.
image via Jens Polster
Without the extra thrust from the bleed air being available, there often wasn’t enough thrust for a safe takeoff. It was during taxi-out and after takeoff that problems arose. There are six switches controlling the bleed air plumbing on a 737 and they must be positioned correctly. One particular mistake could cause damage if both the engine and APU bleed valves were open at the same time as the engine would overpower the APU. Otherwise, one of the more common mistakes was to forget that the APU was needed and to accidentally shut it off. This usually happened right after being cleared for takeoff meaning an embarrassing call to the tower that you had to delay to start it up again.
image via jens polster
Once airborne, forgetting to reconfigure the bleeds back to normal could be a big problem. If you climbed high enough like this, you might get the altitude warning horn as the cabin wouldn’t pressurize. Go higher still and you’d get the “rubber jungle” as the masks fell. Besides causing a severe panic in the back, it was a guaranteed trip to see the chief pilot followed by an unpaid vacation as you’d probably get some time off.
image via aero icarus
Other aspects of the low thrust of the aircraft meant that turning on the engine anti-ice would slow your climb rate and turning on the wing anti-ice meant almost no climb capability as it used quite a bit of bleed air. That said, the cooling capability was always great on the 200. It wasn’t until the introduction of the -300 that Boeing changed the air conditioning to include a “low flow” setting which made that airplane hot in the summer.
Flashback Friday: Our one-stop, one-click recap of the past week on Avgeekery.com.
If your week blurred by so fast you couldn’t spend time at Avgeekery.com (we forgive you) here’s a quick way to catch up. We’ve compiled all of our stories and videos from the past week. They’re all just a click away. Enjoy.
One of a kind: The Antonov An-225 is the world’s largest aircraft.
The FAA is requiring repairs to some models of engines on the Boeing 787s.
An analysis of Southwest Airlines as it continues to negotiate with its pilots in the midst of phasing out its 737-300 models.
Russian pilots like to get buzzed … and we’re not talking about downing shots of vodka.
The A-10 Warthog was basically designed as a flying platform for one of the most bad-ass guns in the U.S. military.
Those who help maintain the C-5 Galaxy have nicknamed the huge transport FRED. Click and read to find out why.
It’s indeed a liberating experience to watch and listen to a B-24 Liberator fire up its four radial engines.
Giving credit where credit is due – the Russians developed an effective VTOL aircraft – the Yak-141 – but its development was thwarted by the breakup of the Soviet Union.
American Airlines continues to phase out of the MD-80, the aircraft which was the company’s workhorse in the 1980s.
A great idea that we hope survives and thrives: JetSuiteX offers the sweet promise of private jet services for the price of commercial flying.
