Official Aviation Thread...

[av8drvr]

Good to hear. I also went through 28 in Corpus, and start up in VT-22 tentatively on June 22. We might be the last of the students to see the A- model, if not in the plane than at least in the sims. Enjoy your weekend.

And for the record, I was in 30th co.

We were flying the Charlie model as IP's back in 06', surprised to hear students are still getting in the A. I still know a lot of the IP's down there. Good bunch of guys. If you ever see a Silver-Grey E46 M3 lurking around the Golden Eagles parking lot thats me visiting some friends. Feel free to PM with any questions you may have. Other than my fleet tour, Kingsville as a student (and as an IP, for that matter) was my favorite duty station on active duty. And FYI I graduated from VMI in 95', no boatschool for me!

[Maluco]

[Ral]

My ex-girlfriend's uncle is restoring that aircraft. His name is Dave Goss, owner of Gosshawk Unlimited. He gave me a tour of the place some time back.. it was simply unreal.

I started jet advanced last Monday. I'll be in the Alpha model (T-45A) my entire training... I might be one of the last pilots in the Navy to fly a jet aircraft with conventional instruments.

[Maluco]

new development in the Air France flight 447 crash... Seems it didn't break up in flight; crashed on it's belly at an extreme speed. What terror!

French: Air France plane hit the sea belly first

French investigators say speed sensors not cause of Flight 447 crash, plane hit water intact

• By Greg Keller and Emma Vandore, Associated Press Writers
• On Thursday July 2, 2009, 3:06 pm EDT

LE BOURGET, France (AP) -- Air France Flight 447 slammed into the Atlantic Ocean, intact and belly first, at such a high speed that the 228 people aboard probably had no time to even inflate their life jackets, French investigators said Thursday in their first report into the June 1 accident.
Likening the investigation to a puzzle with missing pieces, lead investigator Alain Bouillard said that one month after the crash, "we are very far from establishing the causes of the accident."
Problematic speed sensors on the Airbus A330-200 jet that have been the focus of intense speculation since the crash may have misled the plane's pilots but were not a direct cause, Bouillard said, while admitting that investigators are still a long way from knowing what did precipitate the disaster.
"The investigation is a big puzzle," said Bouillard, who is leading the probe for the French accident agency BEA. "Today we only have a few pieces of the puzzle which prevents us from even distinguishing the photo of the puzzle."
The plane was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it went down in a remote area of the Atlantic, 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) off Brazil's mainland and far from radar coverage.
The BEA released its first preliminary findings on the crash Thursday, calling it one of history's most challenging plane crash investigations. Yet the probe, which has operated without access to the plane's flight data and voice recorders, appears so far to have unveiled little about what really caused the accident.
The speed sensors, called Pitot tubes, are "a factor but not the only one," Bouillard said. "It is an element but not the cause," Bouillard told a news conference in Le Bourget outside Paris.
Other elements that came under scrutiny in the immediate aftermath of the crash, such as the possibility that heavy storms or lightning may have brought down the jet, were also downplayed in the BEA's presentation.
Meteorological data show the presence of storm clouds in the area the jet would have flown through, but nothing out of the ordinary for the equatorial region in June, Bouillard said, eliminating the theory that the plane could have encountered a storm of unprecedented power. Other flights through the area shortly after Flight 447 disappeared didn't report unusual weather, Bouillard said.
"Between the surface of the water and 35,000 feet, we don't know what happened," Bouillard admitted. "In the absence of the flight recorders, it is extremely difficult to draw conclusions."
A burst of automated messages emitted by the plane before it fell gave rescuers only a vague location to begin their search, which has failed to locate the plane's black boxes in the vast ocean expanse.
The chances of finding the flight recorders are falling daily as the signals they emit fade. Without them, the full causes of the tragic accident may never be known.
One of the automatic messages indicates the plane was receiving incorrect speed information from the external monitoring instruments, which could destabilize its control systems. Experts have suggested those external instruments might have iced over.

[Maluco]

The Pitots have not been "excluded from the chain that led to the accident," Bouillard said.
Analysis of the 600-odd pieces of the jet that have been recovered indicate the plane "was not destroyed in flight" and appeared to have hit the water intact and "belly first," gathering speed as it dropped thousands of feet, he said.
He also said investigators have found "neither traces of fire nor traces of explosives."
Bouillard said air traffic controllers in Dakar, Senegal had never officially taken control of Flight 447 after its last radio contact with Brazilian flight controllers at 1:35 a.m., and it wasn't until up to seven hours later that flight controllers in Madrid and Brest, France raised an alarm. He said the delay was being investigated but was not a cause of the crash.
Brazilian Air Force Col. Henry Munhoz said all required information on the plane's flight plan was passed to Senegalese air controllers.
Some members of the crash victims' families said that without a clear cause to blame the accident on, the interim report held little significance.
Marco Tulio Moreno Marques, a 43-year-old lawyer in Rio de Janeiro, lost both his parents in the crash. He did not bother watching the French investigators' public presentation, saying that without the black boxes, he was skeptical of any findings.
"I think it is difficult that they will ever find out what happened," he said. "They can say a flying saucer hit the plane, but if they don't find the black boxes we will never know for certain what happened."
Kieran Daly, editor of Air Transport Intelligence, said although investigators seem to know very little about what happened due to "a horrendous lack of evidence," it is significant that the plane landed the right way up.
"It suggests they were in some kind of flight attitude," he said.
But he warned that "without finding the black boxes it's going to be phenomenally difficult, maybe impossible, to determine what happened."
Bouillard said life vests found among the wreckage were not inflated, suggesting passengers were not prepared for a crash landing in the water. The pilots apparently also did not send any mayday calls.
He said there was "no information" suggesting a need to ground the world's fleet of more than 600 A330 planes as a result of the crash.
"As far as I'm concerned there's no problem flying these aircraft," he said.
Air France said all elements of the investigation "will be fully and immediately taken into account by the airline" and that it is continuing to cooperate with the investigators with "a commitment to total transparency with regard to the investigators, its passengers and the general public."
The black boxes -- which are in reality bright orange -- are resting somewhere on an underwater mountain range filled with crevasses and rough, uneven terrain. Bouillard said the search for them has been extended by 10 days through July 10, while his investigation would run through Aug. 15.
Bouillard said French investigators have yet to receive any information from Brazilian authorities about the results of the autopsies on the 51 bodies recovered from the site.
But a spokesman for the Public Safety Department in Brazil's Pernambuco state -- in charge of the autopsies -- denied that.
"French medical examiners are working together with Brazilian medical examiners and they have full access to all the information obtained from autopsies," the spokesman said on condition of anonymity according to department rules.
Families of the victims met with officials from BEA, Air France and the French transport ministry before the report was released. An association of families addressed a letter to the CEO of Air France, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, demanding answers to several questions about the plane.
Investigators should have an easier time recovering debris and black boxes in the crash of a Yemeni Airbus 310 with 153 people on board that went down Tuesday just nine miles (14.5 kilometers) north of the Indian Ocean island-nation of Comoros.
Vandore reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Cecile Brisson at Le Bourget, Angela Charlton in Paris, Marco Sibaja in Brasilia, Bradley Brooks in Rio de Janeiro and Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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[llll1l1ll]

Hey gang!

Sorry if I end up derailing this thread. Anyway, I'm looking to get into aviation somehow. I will reluctantly admit that I am an avid flight simmer. After attending an airshow, it was brought to my attention that I could venture through the Air National Guard to become a pilot.

Does anyone have any information regarding vision issues? I wear glasses/contacts--would this render me unable to become a pilot through the ANG?

Also, I'm a college graduate with two Bachelor of Arts: English and German. I am looking at career possibilities that do not involve working at Spencer's selling vibrators to ugly fat chicks. Being a pilot has always been one of my inspirations.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Also, I should probably throw this in: I'm not all hell-bent on flying F22s and such. I'd be content flying Cessnas and smaller things.

[Hallen]

The eyesight pretty much precludes you from being a military pilot unless your correction is very, very mild. Laser eye surgery is not allowed the last time I checked.

Your eyesight does not stop you from being a civilian pilot. Going that rout requires that you fund all of your flight time. The main job path is to get your private license and then your instructor's license then start teaching (usually at minimum wage). That's how you build time. Then, once you have enough time, you apply for the minors (regional airlines). Once you have enough hours with the minors, you apply to the majors. If you land a job there, then you will get laid off two years later because you don't have enough seniority during a RIF. (or not, but it is a lumpy industry and stability has not been one of it's hallmarks). Or, there are other more obscure paths to take for doing things like corporate/VIP transport, cargo, crop dusting, helicopters, etc.

I can tell you all about the military side from the Army point of view. Others here can tell you about the other branches; they all have aviation programs. If you want more info on the Army programs, send me a PM and I would be happy to answer your questions. I am retired Army National Guard. I flew huey's, Blackhawks, and fixed wing (the Army's way of saying "airplane").

Another option is to look into being an officer in the Air Force. You probably can't be a pilot, but you might be able to land other flying jobs. With you degree taken care of, you could go through some form of OCS to get your commission. It would be a better job than selling plastic dicks.

[Ral]

This has been touched on in another thread, it's below if you want to take a look. It's geared towards a different question, but it might help you out.

http://r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=140334

I'll throw in my 2c: find a way to get in touch with a flight doc/someone in the aeromedical field of the service you're trying to get into. Most services will waive certain types of corrective surgery. I was provided PRK (not lasik, but similar- PRK does not destroy the integrity of the eyeball) a few years ago through the Navy, and am in Navy flight training now. Also, as I understand it they'll even allow you to wear contacts, but I'm much fuzzier on that subject.The biggest thing is to realize that very few things are final, within reason. If your eyes are correctable (within a certain range of correction- you should be able to find out what they are) and someone tells you that they can't do it, go find someone who says they can. And keep trying, then follow through. Other than that, Hallen covered much of it.

and Fly Navy. (that includes the Marine Corps, if you don't like having hair.) If you have any other questions, send me a PM, I'll be happy to answer what questions you might have.

[llll1l1ll]

Hallen and Ral, thanks for your insight! I genuinely appreciate a well-thought answer to a rather vague question.

I have heard that I am allowed to wear contacts, so long as I pass a color test.

Anyway, I'll think up some questions and send them your way.

[hoveringuy]

Ral:

When do you CQ?

Fly Navy!

[thearkitekt]

If you want to avoid the military route you could always go private, its just fairly expensive. But right now would be a good time to go back to school, and if you go to a university program loan money would be easy to come by. I flight instruct at a university now and the training we provide is top notch, and a few of our folks leave and go military anyway. Just food for thought...

[FreedS4]

Just throwing this out there, I started phase 1 of UPT last week. Still in academics and won't hit the flightline for another few weeks, but it's a pretty sweet feeling.

[george graves]

[kroberts]

I used to crew Tweets (T-37's) at Laughlin. My bird was 57-2285, as in 1957! It was the 85fts commanders bird, he was a asshole. Lt. Col Hall I think his name was. He didn't like enlisted men and never seemed to like flying either. He made that abundantly clear every time he came down to the ramp. That was back when Laughlin had military crew chiefs, and they were still flying T-37s. They were still flying C141's and F-4's back then though. I'm old.

Have you ever seen a Tweet? I think Columbus still flies them.

Watch out for tarantulas in the wheel wells when you do your preflight walk-around in the morning. I guess that only applies if your bird hasn't been up yet, first go's we used to call it. We used to find tarantulas in the wheel wells and rattle snakes around the chocks.

Those new Texans are some badass looking little scooters. I like the way they sound. I see them now and then flying the approach into Kelly.

Del Rio is a shithole isn't it? Good luck.

[thearkitekt]

flew into burke lakefront today in cleveland, ohio. thought i would post this up, shot from my iphone...