Swanky music, bell bottoms, and crazy human tricks defined the 70’s.
In 1976, Clay Lacy, a famous businessman and movie pilot, was requested to pilot a DC-8 in one of the weirdest stunts in the history of aviation. It was called The Human Fly.
Rick Rojatt, a costumed Canadian stunt actor, made the request. For promotional reasons, Rick wanted to stand on top of a DC-8 wearing a fly costume, with the words “The Human Fly” painted along the side of the jet. He wanted the plane flown over the Mojave Desert and over Texas.
Rick Rojatt was dressed in a fly costume when he spoke to reporters about being ready to stand on the wing of a flying lear jet aircraft.
That’s easy for Clay Lacy to say. Clay Lacy piloted the plane. Rick Rojatt was the one who performed the stunt, and nearly got himself killed when it suddenly started raining. Rain hits pretty hard when you are traveling at great speeds. Fortunately, the pilot was able to see Rojatt on the screen via camera. When Rojatt passed out and his arms fell to his sides, Clay Lacy landed the plane. Rojatt was helped down with a cherry picker and stuffed into an ambulance, from where he emerged a short while later, limping from where the rain had hit him in the legs. At over 250mph, the rain became like rocks. Said Rojatt, “The rain was like bullets.” After months of recovery, Rojatt would heal but there hasn’t been an externally attached DC-8 passenger since (or on any airliner for that matter).
Any avgeek is a fan of a little post-cold war fighter rivalry…even if it’s just at an airshow.
This video footage, uploaded on August 10th of 2016, features the vertical takeoffs of a Polish MIG-29 and a VS F-22 Raptor, against the backdrop of a cloudy grey sky at the 2016 Royal International Air Tattoo.
The MIG-29 blows black smoke as it prepares to take off in the early evening light. You can see the heat rising around the aircraft as fire shoots out the two Kilmov RD-33 afterburning engines. At just a few feet off the ground, the MIG-29 shoots skyward in a near vertical direction. Next, an F-22 Raptor does the same trick, only the F-22 appears to be more graceful as it commences its near vertical departure. In our humble opinion, the F-22 takes the prize. But wow…Spectacular show of force by both jets.
About the Mig-29
The MIG-29 is a twin engine jet fighter aircraft, designed in the Soviet Union. Introduced in 1982, the MIG-29 is still in service. Its primary users are the Russian Air Force, the Indian Air Force, the Ukrainian Air Force, the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, and others. More than 1,600 MIG-29 aircraft have been built between 1981 and today.
About the F-22 Raptor
The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is a single seat, twin engine, all weather stealth aircraft. It took its maiden voyage on September 18th of 1997. After much testing and tweaking, the F-22 Raptor was introduced to the United States Air Force in 2005. Between 1996 and 2011, 195 Raptors were manufactured.
The Boeing P-8A Poseidon is a 737 that was modified to be used by the United States Navy. It is characterized by a long, sleek, strengthened fuselage and the characteristic Boeing tail. It is more than 129 feet long, with a wing span of more than 123 feet including a very unique set of raked wingtips instead of winglets. From the ground to the top of the tail, the plane is more than 42 feet tall. The Boeing P-8A has an average cruise speed of 440 knots, and a maximum speed of 470 knots. The P-8A is designed to carry torpedoes, harpoon missiles, and other weapons.
This video clip, published on September 5th of 2016, shows a Boeing P-8A Poseidon making a very sporty (AKA Navy-style) tactical approach and landing on a rainy, slippery runway, at the Farnborough 2016 airshow.
NextGen Sub Hunting Navy Jet Makes Sporty Approach to Wet Runway 4
The Boeing P-8A took its maiden voyage on April 25th of 2009, but needed further testing. It was finally introduced to the U.S. Navy in November of 2013. As of January 2015, there have been 29 Boeing P-8A aircraft manufactured. The P-8A’s first international customer was India, whose ministers of defense signed a 2.1 billion dollar agreement on January 4th of 2009. Primary users of the Boeing P-8A are the United States Navy and the Indian Navy.
In November of 2015, the UK announced its intention to purchase up to nine Boeing P-8A aircraft, at a cost of 3.2 billion dollars. The most recent international entities showing interest in the Boeing P-8A are Italy, Turkey, Norway, and the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
Video was originally posted by TopFelya on Youtube. You can follow his Facebook page here.
Automation is best deployed as an enhanced decision making tool, not something which a bored human being should be tasked to sit and watch.
“When we design our systems, we need to assign appropriate roles to the human and technological components. It is best for humans to be the doers and technology to be the monitors, providing decision aids and safeguards.” – Captain Sully Sullenberger
The past week has seen several high profile aviation incidents come to light. The first one was a preliminary accident report on the crash and fire which destroyed an Emirates Boeing 777 in Dubai last August. The second was the release of the final report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) regarding an AirAsia Airbus A330-300 enroute from Sydney to Malaysia last year which suffered navigation and other system failures as the result of erroneous input by the pilots during preflight.
The Emirates crash tragically took the life of a responding fireman, while the AirAsia incident caused no injuries but did result in a diversion. Each incident had the potential for great loss of life, though. The improper use of automation can be implicated in both the Emirates and AirAsia events. Let’s take a look at each of these and see if we can draw some parallels.
Emirates 521
The crash report on the Emirates flight, released by the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) of the UAE details that the approach was flown by the captain. The autopilot was disconnected for the landing while the autothrottles remained engaged. The aircraft experienced a longitudinal wind component which changed from a headwind of 8 kts to a tailwind of 16 kts during the approach. As a result of the decreasing performance wind shift, the aircraft made a long touchdown.
An automatic system on the Boeing warned the crew about the long touchdown, and a decision was made to go around. So far so good. Going around rather than accepting a long landing due to shifting winds is the correct decision.
What happened next wasn’t so good. The nose was raised, the flaps were reset and the gear were retracted, but go-around power was not added until three seconds before the aircraft impacted the runway with the gear partially retracted. The post crash fire destroyed the aircraft entirely.
Adding power during a go-around is…or should be, instinctual. It’s considered aviation 101, or rather it used to be. Today’s highly automated aircraft, however, all employ autothrottles which automatically advance themselves when the “Takeoff-go-around” or TOGA button is pushed. This is how go-arounds are performed on automated aircraft.
The 777, however, has a feature which disables the TOGA button after touchdown. This makes sense as you don’t want the throttles to advance after landing in case of accidentally touching the TOGA button. After a normal landing, that is. There are times when a rejected landing, or go-around, occurs after touchdown. The reasons vary, but a landing can be rejected any time until the thrust reversers are deployed, even after the gear touch down.
This is what happened to the Emirates 777. It touched down, and then attempted a go-around without adding power. Questions remain as to whether or not the captain actually engaged the TOGA button but in any case, the captain should have manually pushed up the throttles for the go-around or ensured that the autothrottles automatically advanced.
Why would he not do that? Easy. It’s called negative conditioning or negative training. Go-arounds are routinely practiced in all airline simulator training programs, but go-arounds after touchdown are practiced much less frequently. Over time, muscle memory will expect the autothrottles to advance themselves during a normal go-around as they always do.
Put a pilot in a highly dynamic situation such as a windshear landing, and then perhaps throw in a non-routine distraction such as the automatic runway length warning, and voila, muscle memory takes over and the throttles don’t get pushed up. Automation, which is supposed to make flying easier and safer, might have helped make a crash such as this inevitable.
Air Asia X Airbus A330. (Photo by Kentaro Iemoto)
AirAsia X 223
On March 15 last year, an AirAsia A330 suffered multiple inflight malfunctions of its navigational display systems rendering the aircraft incapable of either continuing to its destination in Malaysia, nor of returning to its origination point of Sydney due to low ceilings. The aircraft eventually landed uneventfully in Melbourne, which had clear weather.
Subsequent investigation revealed that the pilots made a data entry error during their pre-flight checks consisting of a single digit error in programming the aircraft’s location.
Modern navigation systems on today’s commercial aircraft are capable of guiding an airplane to a spot on the other side of the globe with accuracy down to several feet. But in order to know where to go, the computers on the airplane first have to know where they are.
Part of the preflight process is to enter in the aircraft’s current location in the form of a latitude and longitude. The pilot entering this data made some sort of fat finger error which resulted in the actually entered position being thousands of miles away from the Sydney airport. So after the aircraft departed, discrepancies between where it actually was and where it believed it was caused the computers to crash resulting in a nearly complete failure of the navigational system.
After identifying and while attempting to fix the problems with the navigation systems, the crew compounded their problem by cycling two of their three flight computers to off and back on. This incorrect procedure resulted in the loss of other primary flight displays and rendered the aircraft incapable of flying even a simple approach back to Sydney necessitating the diversion to Melbourne.
Even after arrival at Melbourne, the aircraft had to make several attempts at a completely manual landing without the benefit of either the autopilot nor autothrottles. There is little doubt that flying a highly automated aircraft left the pilot’s manual flying skills in a somewhat rusty state, which is completely expected.
Airbus A350 cockpit (Photo by Joao Carlos Medau).
Automation: Friend or Foe?
Automation of commercial airliners is with us to stay. It provides many benefits and economies but there are problems with its deployment which contributes to accidents and incidents such as these. The old aphorism which states that computers just allow humans to make mistakes faster and with more efficiency certainly applies here.
Over reliance on automation is also well known to cause a deterioration in manual stick and rudder piloting skills, which go unmissed until they are needed. The crash of Asiana 214 in San Francisco several years ago was a perfect example of this.
But as Captain Sully warned in the quote above, automation is best deployed as an enhanced decision making tool, not something which a bored human being should be tasked to sit and watch, as it is today.
A long time ago, you could go to the movie theater and not have to deal with 40 minutes of crappy movie previews. Instead, you saw a newsreel that was focused on the war and an ad to sign up and go kick some Hitler and Tojo ass.
This black and white video from the 1940s is a recruiting commercial for the Unites States Army Air Corps during World War II. It starts with the caption, “Attention Young Men.” It then shows cadets standing attention, while a voiced over narration explains that just a short while ago, they too were “average American boys from average American families.” Soon, they will learn how to pilot a plane, how to navigate, and eventually ship off to defend freedom.
Young men are told that if they are 17, they can sign up for the army reserve, and will be called soon after their 18th birthdays. Men between the ages of 18 and 26 are cordially invited to join the army to crush the axis powers. A row of muscle toned, shirtless cadets graces the screen, making young men everywhere want to be just like them.
“There are things to do and places to go,” chimes the narrator, “and the Army Air Forces will supply both, to whoever has the will to smack the enemy where it hurts the most.”
Most interesting are the planes of WWII, shown flying throughout the commercial. The marvelous AT-6 stands ready to challenge cadets to become real pilots.
If you are up for the challenge, you are encouraged to stop in the lobby on your way out of the theater, or to inquire at 607 Custom House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. No phone number is given.
Call us a sucker for a good Avgeek video, no matter how old or VHS looking it may be. We’ll admit it. We have a bad habit of binge watching L1011 videos. It’s almost as bad as twenty-somethings who just found out that a new season of “House of Cards” is released on Netflix.
The Delta L1011 Tristar aircraft, manufactured by Lockheed, was magnificently designed but definitely had its faults too. It was a wide body, trijet airliner, with a seating capacity of up to 400 passengers. In many ways it was an aircraft ahead of its time. It was on of the first airliners to be able to fly a CATIIIa ILS that allowed the jet to land in extremely poor weather conditions. It also had many amenities that were previously only found on the larger 747. Some aircraft had a lower deck galley with lounge facilities. Unfortunately, it was also a commercial disaster. The program was delayed which meant that the jet hit the market later than planned. Promised performance never materialized and the complexity of its systems made maintenance a challenge. Lockheed never turned a profit on the trijet. Its failure led Lockheed to exit the commercial aircraft market.
Image via Delta
Delta’s first L1011 arrived on October 3rd of 1973. It’s first revenue flight was on November 15th of that year, with 39 passengers onboard. Join in the retirement of the last Delta L1011 Tristar. The historic flight to Victorville, California happened the following day. A specially selected group of Delta employees accompanied the aircraft to its final resting place.
This plane was (and still is) loved by scores of avgeeks everywhere. Despite the adoration, Delta’s L1011 Tristar (ship number 728) was retired as the last L1011 passenger plane on July 31st of 2001, after serving for 28 years across 40 U.S. cities and 39 International cities.
Image via aero icarus
Traditionally, every airline service bids a final farewell to its retired planes, then flies them to the desert southwest for final storage and breakup. The L1011 fleet met the same unfortunate end.
Sighting of an active L1011 is extremely rare today. Of the 250 of this type of aircraft built between 1968 and 1984, the only active aircraft is flown by Orbital ATK.
It’s a well known fact that C-130s are one of the tools that firefighters use in their arsenal to fight wildfires. But how do they convert a standard Hercules aircraft into a MAFFS airplane?
This footage, which was published on September 11th of 2015, shows the MAFFS being added to a pair of C-130 Hercules aircraft. MAFFS is an acronym for the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System. To put it simply, MAFFS is a giant water/chemical tank loaded into the cargo hold. It holds about 2,700 gallons of water. This is the best weapon the military has to combat fire. MAFFS is used in the C-130 aircraft of the Colombian Air Force, the Brazilian Air Force, the Royal Moroccan Air Force, and the Royal Thai Air Force. While the C-130 is not the only aircraft that can drop chemicals or water on a fire, it has an advantage in that there are many C-130s where as larger tankers like the DC-10 or 747 are more limited resources.
Members of the 153rd Airlift Wing of the Wyoming Air National Guard are preparing two C-130 aircraft in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for MAFFS missions in the Rocky Mountain region.
The MAFFS program was established by Congress after the Laguna fire of 1970 overwhelmed available aviation firefighting resources. The idea of stuffing cargo planes with water tanks was meant to integrate military air tankers into the national response system. Today, MAFFS equipment is stationed at eight locations throughout the United States.
The MAFFS consists of five pressurized, fire retardant water tanks. The system can disperse all 2,700 gallons of water in five seconds over a fire. This produces a fire line that is 60 feet wide and a quarter mile long. Not only that, but all that water can be reloaded in only eight minutes.
The following story was written by Joe Blewitt, a retired C-141 Starlifter pilot about his experience meeting Mother, now St. Teresa of Calcutta. It was originally posted on Facebook. Joe has graciously allowed Avgeekery to share his special memory.
The weekend of the canonization of Mother Teresa seems like the appropriate time to post this image, along with the story behind it. This picture of Mother Teresa was taken in July of 1991 in Tirana, Albania. I was blessed (literally) to be standing just to the right of Mother Teresa when this photo was taken. I was on my first overseas mission flying the C-141. Every mission afterwards had the misfortune of being compared to this one. I’d be hard-pressed to pick one that topped it – although there were many more incredibly memorable, in their own way.
In July of 1991, we were withdrawing troops and materiel from the Gulf War region. It was also a time when many former communist countries were moving towards democracy. The first open elections in Albania in 60 years took place on March 31, 1991. Prior to then, the country was basically cut off from all western influences. This new political climate created an opening for diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Albania, an extremely poor country – to the point of starvation in some cases.
There was a request from the new Albanian government for food. This connects back to the first part of the story – the end of the Gulf War and bringing home troops and materiel – which included massive amounts of unused MREs, since the ground war was much shorter than expected. The request for assistance was granted and we set up an “air bridge” from Sigonella Naval Air Station in Italy and shuttled MREs into Albania several times a day for a week.
What does this have to do with Mother Teresa? Albania is her birthplace. It was one of her lifelong goals to return and establish a mission in her home country. She happened to be there opening an orphanage and learned we were bringing in these supplies. She requested some MREs for her orphanage and the request was granted. Mother Teresa came out to the plane and helped unload the boxes. She didn’t hesitate at all and began picking up boxes and carrying them to her vehicle. She was one month shy of 81 years old, stood about 4′ 6″ – although she was technically 5′ tall. It was amazing to witness her in action.
I had the honor of giving Mother Teresa a personal tour of the airplane, walking her around the entire perimeter of the plane and then inviting her to come in and take a look around. As soon as we stepped inside the airplane, she blessed herself and began to pray. Everyone standing there joined her – as best they could – no matter their religion. She said the Our Father, The Hail Mary and The Glory Be, blessed the airplane, blessed our crew and thanked us for bringing the supplies. Then she signed our log book (AFTO 781 for all you Air Force types). It was a surreal experience to say the least. It’s hard to describe, but I knew then I was standing with a saint – amazing to see it as a reality today.
Mother Teresa was proclaimed a saint by Pope Francis in Rome on September 4th, 2016.
The Douglas AC-47 Spooky (also known as Puff the Magic Dragon) is one rough and tumble aircraft. Manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company, and introduced in 1965. It was developed from the C-47 Skytrain. There were 53 AC-47 Spooky aircraft produced. It is more than 64 feet long, with a wing span of more than 95 feet. It holds a crew of seven: pilot, copilot, navigator, flight engineer, loadmaster, and two gunners. The AC-47 has a cruise speed of 175 miles an hour, and a maximum speed of 235 miles an hour. It wasn’t fast but it sure was deadly.
This footage shows fighter planes in action, including the Douglas AC-47 Spooky. Some other war planes used were the Phantom, the Corsair, the Intruder the F-111, the Thunder Chief, the B-52, and Skyhawk. But take a look at the footage around :40 into the short clip. You’ll see what those 6,000 rounds per minute look like as the tracers turn night into day and rain death upon the enemy below.
Primary users of the AC-47 included the United States Air Force (USAF), the Vietnam Air Force, the Royal Lao Air Force and the Colombian Air Force.
About the AC-47 Spooky
The Douglas AC-47 Spooky is a modified C-47 transport plane equipped with three gatling guns, each one capable of firing six thousand rounds of ammunition a minute. It was developed for the Viet Nam war, and designed for heavy ground attack and close air support. The Spooky flew only at night, but carried flares to light up enemy positions. It was especially valuable in defending bases against night time attack.
There are two air bases in Florida where the AC-47 Spooky is on display. They are the Air Commando Park at Hurlburt Field, and the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin Air Force base near Valparaiso.
Nicosia Airport in Cyprus has been abandoned since 1974. Ever since the Turkish invasion on July 20th, all commercial activity had ceased. The airport, which was constructed in the 1930s, had been the scene of some heavy fighting between Turkey and Cyprus. After that, the United Nations Security Council declared the Nicosia airport a United Nations Protected Area during the battle. Both sides had to retreat more than 500 meters beyond the airport’s perimeter.
On August 16th of 1974, a ceasefire agreement was signed. At that point, the airport became part of the UN’s controlled Buffer Zone, separating the two warring communities on the island.
Nicosia airport has not been a fully functional airport since then. Still, the site supports active United Nations helicopters, and headquarters the UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus. The airport is also used for international peace talks. The airport was, and is, owned by the British Ministry of Defense.
In 1975, both the Greek and the Turkish communities agreed to jointly reopen the Nicosia airport. However, talks regarding this matter did not progress smoothly. In fact, this video footage seems to show that they never did any remodeling after the war. The entire property is in ruins. See the derelict buildings. View the broke down planes. Listen to the jaw harp music twanging in the background. It is a spooky, lonely, trashy looking place.
This video also shows a few nice vintage photos from when Nicosia airport was open for business. It would bring a tear to the eye of any avgeek. It’s a snapshot back to the airport scenes of the 1970s.
Back in the early 1980s, American Airlines took a bet on the MD-80. McDonnell Douglas was desperate for business. American’s CEO at the time (Bob Crandall) negotiated a sweetheart deal that allowed American to establish hubs (and eventually a fortress hub like DFW) across the United States. After the acquisition of TWA, the fleet grew to approximately 370 in service at its peak. It was the go to jet for short and medium routes until the 737-800 and eventually A320 series began to take over its duties in the mid-2000s.
By the end of 2019, American will have removed all of its MD-80s from service.
This video features a sleek, shiny, red, white, blue and silver Mad Dog 80 screaming down the runway on a hazy afternoon at San Jose International airport. View the surrounding office buildings and the beautiful mountains beyond. Notice how the plane’s wings are located near the tail, toward the end of a very long fuselage.
The MD-80 featured in this video, with tail number N557AN, was retired in 2015.
About the MD-80
The MD-80 is twin engine, single aisle, narrow body commercial jet airliner, manufactured by McDonnell Douglas, and later by Boeing. It is a mid size, medium range airliner. This slender aircraft has a number of variants, including the MD-81, the MD-82, the MD-83, the MD-87, and MD-88. The MD-80 can seat anywhere from 130 to 172 passengers, depending on the variant. Each variant also features upgrades in the cockpit and avionics.
The aircraft took its maiden voyage on October 18th of 1979. However, two MD-80 aircraft were severely damaged during the test flights. Despite the early design issues, the MD-80 underwent improvements. The first variant of the MD-80 was introduced with Swissair in October of 1980. The MD-80 series was eventually modified into the MD-90 series.
Almost 1,200 MD-80 aircraft were built between 1979 and 1999, at a unit cost in the 40 million dollar range.
Was bigger better? In the case of the Antonov 225 heavy cargo jet, I think it was! After all, 6 soul-shaking jet engines screaming at full power is always a rush. The video is the taxi (back-taxi on Rwy 16 at ZRH) and takeoff of a flight from Zurich, Switzerland. The plane is an An-225 Mriya (In Ukrainian, mriya means dream, or inspiration). The An-225 Mriya (Cossack) was the only one of its kind ever built. A second airframe was partially constructed, but production was halted due to lack of funding. An agreement between China and Ukraine was signed at one point to explore China producing additional copies in the future.
About the An-225
The An-225 was a strategic airlift cargo plane, designed in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. It was originally intended for transporting the Buran space shuttle for the Soviet Space Program, which is why the plane loaded cargo through its nose. The pressurized cargo hold was 46,000 cubic feet in volume. After its military missions were completed, the An-225 was put on hold for about eight years, then it was reintroduced as a plane that could carry oversized cargo loads.
The An-225 was the longest and heaviest plane ever built, and powered by six turbofan engines. Its landing gear system had 32 wheels, and the plane was equipped with a twin tail design. It also had the largest wing span of any plane in operational service. The An-225 was destroyed on 24 February 2022 by invading Russian forces at Hostomel airport in Ukraine.
