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adds Air Serbia to list of airlines I'd be happy to fly with
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taxis what's left of the aircraft to the terminal.
A good landing is any one you can walk away from, a great landing is one where they can use the aircraft again afterwards
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Years ago, early 90’s in fact, I flew from Dublin to Farranfore in Co Kerry. It was a Fokker F27, a high-wing twin turboprop, a decent enough aircraft. The weather was grim, wet and windy. We approached Kerry and it got much worse with a big storm coming in from the Atlantic. High-wing aircraft tend to swing about a bit like a pendulum in gusty conditions and we were going all over the place. We came into land, being buffeted like crazy, and about 100 feet up from landing the pilot bailed out and went around. We had another go but the same result. The pilot came over the radio and said that we were being diverted to Shannon. We got most of the way there to be told that Shannon had just closed due to the weather. We turned back and aimed for Cork, and we were halfway to Cork when that was closed too. So we had to turn back to Kerry. The storm was really bad at this point, we were being buffeted all over the place, people were vomiting, crying, kids screaming, really grim. I was an aircraft mechanic and even I was getting a bit concerned. Anyway, we made an approach to Kerry and again the pilot bailed out. The pilot came over the radio and explained that we were running low on fuel, and we would have to land at the next attempt, no matter what. We all had to go through the crash routine and brace ourselves, lean forward, hands over the head, the lot. People were praying. We came in fast to lessen the effect of possible wind shear, and I don’t know what height we were at when the pilot slammed it down, but we hit the runway like a airdropped cathedral. I’ve never experienced such a violent landing, the crash was incredible; lockers burst open, trolleys jumped six feet in the air as did the passengers. We didn’t even bounce, the crew stuck it down that hard. We came to a halt at the end of the runway with no power, and we had to be towed back to the apron. People were crying, the plane stank of vomit, shit, everything. How the undercarriage legs didn’t end up poking out of the top of the wings I’ll never know, or perhaps they did.
The aircraft was damaged almost beyond repair, and was out of service for some 8 months. I knew several people on that flight who never flew again after that. I flew back to London a couple of weeks later on a 737 and never flew in an F27 again.
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Yikes. I’ve never really had anything approaching that.
Is it weird or sick that I have a morbid curiosity for plane crashes? I used to regularly watch air crash investigation shows and these days I often watch Flight Channel on YouTube which does decent factual cg recreations of air accidents.
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Wow. I flew into Jersey and IOM in an out of City on Dash 8 turboprops every week for about 2 years. A few times with crosswinds you could see the runway out of the side windows on final approach, which was always disconcerting, but nothing like that
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New Netflix documentary about the 737 Max crashes...
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really don't know how I feel about flying on one of those. assume you've got no right to a refund if you refuse to board a flight that's using one
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Probably 3 times the normal level of US air activity here in East Anglia, where departing and recovering KC-135 tankers and RC-135W Rivet Joint electronic surveillance machines fly overhead. They live at Mildenhall, Suffolk, but non-locals also fly in from the USA.
Also new: rarely seen KC-10 tankers, C-135 atmospheric sampler machines (detect/identify nuclear explosions) and RAF E-3 Sentry surveillance aircraft.
All the above are usually stood down at weekends, but not this weekend!
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NATO scaling things up out East.
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Unusual sight. F-16 came barrelling over here Norfolk/Suffolk border this am fast and low. Took me a while to work out what it was. Dunno whose they are; I didn't know there were any F-16s here. Looks a bit like Tornado and flying c. 1,000ft was very reminiscent too. Ou sont les Tonkas d'antan?
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Dunno whose they are; I didn't know there were any F-16s here
All bets are off at the moment, stuff is getting moved around. If Poland is giving away Mig 29s and taking second hand US stock to fill the gaps, maybe Air National Guard F16s?
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Is that back on?
The last I read, the US had changed their mind.
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Is that back on?
It does seem to be a moving target. Even if the MiG transfer is off, the US would surely lend/lease all the F16s Europe can use to the respective countries.
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Here's an intriguing one, someone just posted on a local forum (East Dulwich)
This is Dog Kennel Hill, 1946. The road that cuts across at 8 o clock from the main central road at the top, from DK Hill to Champion Hill. Fifth house along from main road, set back above the road ....light German bomber in the front garden??
^and a great site for historic aerial photography.
leggy_blonde
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rodan
Ordinata
jj72
Dooks-Fatberg
el_presidente
Brun
cozzzzzzzz
Manson7am
Squircle
de_Selby
Stonehedge
Ludd
Scilly.Suffolk
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Chopsicle-
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@GA2G
Welcome to London Heathrow. Please remain seated while the pilot taxis what's left of the aircraft to the terminal.