Official Aviation Thread...

[flyboyx]

my first flying job was a twin otter in the south pacific. that airplane burned about 50 gallons an hour for two engines that developed about 1500 hp. i don't know how much the unlimited class needs in hp to be competitive, but lets guess 3000+ or so. by that standard, i would guess they burn around 120-150 gal/hr.

[M-technik-3]

good old aircraft spruce where you can build just about anything.

[BlackbirdM3]

When I get things with the camera right... Voodoo, doing about 490 mph, shutter speed 1/100 sec, 440mm...


Will

[LateFan]

That's cool! Amazing you can catch that at 1/100.

Flyboy....that's $1200 / hour.......ow....

[george graves]

its one of those Chinese carriers. all of them have bad safety records.

Why do I get the feeling that some small countries (like Malaysia) don't really have their own airlines. It's just a sticker on the plane, and that the whole operation is owned by someone else in the US or other? Seems like quite a jump for some of these small countries to actually have a multi-millions into a fleet of aircraft.

[mrsleeve]

my first flying job was a twin otter in the south pacific.

Given what little I know about you, there HAS to be some STORIES that go along with this.

Will, Your making the VR in that thing earn its keep, but that is a very nice panning shot at "close range" with a lot of zoom.... Good job !!!! I bet the sound is incredible too

[flyboyx]

Why do I get the feeling that some small countries (like Malaysia) don't really have their own airlines. It's just a sticker on the plane, and that the whole operation is owned by someone else in the US or other? Seems like quite a jump for some of these small countries to actually have a multi-millions into a fleet of aircraft.

i really don't know a lot about ownership, but they do hire a lot of ex pat pilots. there are a couple of reasons for this. first, they simply don't have enough pilots from the home country to fly the flights needed to cover a daily schedule. the second problem is that generally speaking, asians are culturally unsuitable to be airline pilots.

here in the usa, we have gone through a revolution over the last 30 years or so called cockpit(or crew) resource management. basically, what this means is that back in the 70's there were more than a few accidents where the cause was pilot error and a lesser crew member seeing the problem but for one reason or another, had an inability to speak up. this class discusses past incidents and what could have been done to prevent them. also, it is now encouraged for lower raking members to speak up. we have mostly gotten away from "the captain is god" mentality. i can say for a fact that this has greatly improved airline safety here in the usa. when was the last major accident here? oh, yeah......it was a 777 that crash landed in san francisco flown by 2 asian pilots. coincidence? fuck no. the instrument landing system was out of service for that runway and those shit monkeys didn't have the skill to fly a visual approach. for some reason, people in that part of the world culturally cannot grasp crm. if you combine this with the fact that they generally aren't very good pilots to begin with, you get a string of disasters on your hands. for the hell of it, do a google search of all the accidents by Korean Airlines from back in the 90's. for a while there, they were having like 3 a year. these fuckers actually hired delta airlines(maybe it was northwest) to be safety consultants. they sent a team to korea for a few months and did some looking around. the final result was that they decided the company was so fucked up, they canceled the contract and came back home.

Given what little I know about you, there HAS to be some STORIES that go along with this.

wink, wink.;D i guess i just need the right opportunity to start telling them.

[flyboyx]

That's cool! Amazing you can catch that at 1/100.

Flyboy....that's $1200 / hour.......ow....

maybe ten years ago, i read an article about unlimited racing. the guy that owned rare bear said that it costs him well over a hundred grand(i think the number was between 130 and 150k) in expenses for the race at reno. this had nothing to do with the cost of getting the plane ready.

[mrsleeve]

wink, wink.;D i guess i just need the right opportunity to start telling them.

this is the aviation thread, so long as there is something to do with/in/around/near/beacuse of, etc... an aircraft, I think it fits. well then again, given the south pacific........... maybe it didn't ;)

For the LuLz

[flyboyx]

that makes me roll on the ground and uncontrollably giggle my ass off. i was in l.a. the day this accident happened. i remember seeing that broadcast live. "ntsb confirmed the names are....." lololol. it just goes to show that sometimes when you read off a teleprompter, you don't take the time to comprehend the material. (ron burgundy) i can just imagine that after she read that off and thought about it for a second, in her mind, she was probably saying "aw fuck!!!!!".

of course, after the accident, the airport was shut down for over a day. most of the traffic diverted to LAX. it was like a living hell trying to get out of there the next day back to houston. every flight was overbooked by like 60 people. when i signed up for the jump seat, i bribed the united gate agent with a cup of coffee on the first flight in the morning. several other jump seaters showed up after i got there. they were actually united pilots with a much higher priority than me. the agent told them they were too late as she had already assigned it to someone else. score!!!!

[M-technik-3]

The CRM concept came about after the KLM crash on Tenerife.

[flyboyx]

yes that one was a pilot error too. united airlines is generally credited with getting the first program going. they had a dc8 fly into a mountain near salt lake city. the airplane was holding because they had(i believe) a landing gear problem. no one was minding the store and the hold they were flying drifted east into the terrain while all three of them were playing around with the instrument panel lights. oops.

eastern airlines had an L-1011 fly into the everglades for exactly the same reason. they were also playing around with landing gear lights. someone accidentally kicked off the autopilot but no one realized it.

flying tiger had a 747 hit the rocks flying into kuala lumpur. the controller told the crew to "descend two four hundred feet". (meant 2 thousand 400 feet) the pilots interpreted his shit english as descend to 400 feet. they were also pretty fatigued from flying through the night for several hours. this one was cargo, so only the crew died here.

[M-technik-3]

Flight Safety Corp is a spin off from United. Yeah, I see alot of errors from time to time and don't hesitate to chime in over intercom. When I do get to sit jumpseat, I'm the radio and eyes out when pilots are working the stupid software interface issues.

We generally fly with a crew of 12 or more so I don't fit up front all that often. I have gotten pretty decent at flying our jet, full motion simulator is pretty dam awesome.

I was on a crew that was involved with a Class A mishap in Baghdad a few years back and since then I'm involved far more than some pilots like.

[BlackbirdM3]

Will, Your making the VR in that thing earn its keep, but that is a very nice panning shot at "close range" with a lot of zoom.... Good job !!!! I bet the sound is incredible too

To be honest, I don't know if the VR is even working on the lens. I'm really thinking about sending it back. Its had a lot of weird focus issues that have had a lot of people scratching their heads.

Yes, the sound is amazing from that spot. It just echos off the surrounding hills. Its better than sanding right under the planes as they go around the pylons. That said, when I was shooting from pylon 2, the start of the Unlimiteds was an amazing experience. I had Voodoo go right over my head at well over 500 mph, 150 feet above me. Shooting from the pylons is an amazing experience. I got some epic cockpit shots. That said, shooting from the pylons also sucks because there is no reference point other than the pylon itself. You end up with everyone shooting the same shot. Its really hard to shoot something different. I shot 64gb worth of photos this year. Lots of crap, but there are some really epic shots in there as well. I can't wait to go through everything to see what I got.

Revision of the original shot.

and another nice one.

Will

[flyboyx]

sweet! its kind of a bummer that from your vantage point the airplanes are always tilted away from you instead of toward.

you might try changing the crop a little so the airplane is flying into the picture instead of centered.

i would definitely return the lens if you think there is an issue. especially if it is still under warranty or within the return/exhcange policy of wherever you bought it.

i have purchased a couple new lenses that were doa. the last one came from my local best buy. it was really a convenient way to get a new one that actually worked.