Official Aviation Thread...

[ThatM20Guy]

What!!! Man you need to get one! Allows you to fly so many more fun planes, not to mention a it brings a new set of challenges. It makes you really good at stick and rudder skills and feeling out the plane. I think it's one of the best things I've done to enhance my overall piloting skills.

Also got to see a buddy of mines fathers A-1 Skyraider today. Holy crap! I never realized how big of a plane it is! It looked like an absolute beast and from his dads stories it sounds like it flies like one. Full right rudder on takeoff and it's still not enough to keep it straight at full power on takeoff roll, so you only put as much power as your right leg can handle!

It's the NX959AD Naked Fanny

[BlackbirdM3]

What!!! Man you need to get one! Allows you to fly so many more fun planes, not to mention a it brings a new set of challenges. It makes you really good at stick and rudder skills and feeling out the plane. I think it's one of the best things I've done to enhance my overall piloting skills.

Also got to see a buddy of mines fathers A-1 Skyraider today. Holy crap! I never realized how big of a plane it is! It looked like an absolute beast and from his dads stories it sounds like it flies like one. Full right rudder on takeoff and it's still not enough to keep it straight at full power on takeoff roll, so you only put as much power as your right leg can handle!

It's the NX959AD Naked Fanny

Taildraggers are where its at. Its been a LONG time since I've flown in one however. I'd love to get my licence and pick up either a Stinson 108 or a Globe/Temco Swift.

Skyraiders, yeah they are HUGE!




My friend who's garage my Datsun and Alfa live in flew Skyraiders in Vietnam. If I can find a pic, I'm going to build a model of his plane. As he put it, a Skyraider is a "Big Dirty Dump truck". I've never seen one fly in person, but I keep hoping to.

Will

[george graves]

Holy Cow.

Ketron Island crash.

Q400 - a 80 passenger twin turbo prop, "stolen" from SeaTac. Mechanic had taxi training to move planes. Got it in the air. Eventually shut down Seatac, and f-15 were scrambled. According to my Mom's neighbors, they hear gun fire right before the plane when down. A small boom, and then a bit later a ground shake. But you know how witnesses accounts are always off.

My Mom lives on the island right next to where it crashed. When I take the ferry there to visit her, we often go to that island first, and the ferry drops off a few cars - I'd say only 15 people live on that island. Mostly summer homes. Biggest home has it's own dock, and is a $1.7 million dollar jobby.

It's on the edge of Joint Base Lewis-McChord where despite it being so close to a major population, they do a lot of training with live rounds, so big booms and the occasional window rattling jet isn't that unusual. Just a few months ago, I saw a c-130(?) drop a bunch of seals and a boat in the water from what seemed to be less then ~1000 feet.

The public ATC recordings are here. Part one starts at about 17min in. It's disturbing.

https://heavy.com/news/2018/08/plane-hijacked-stolen-audio-seatac-seattle/

It's weird, that he was only at about 1000-5000 feet, and was acting like he was "drunk" with lack of oxygen. He even mentions to the ATC that he doesn't know how to pressurize the cabin. Then starts making random comments. Everything from Minimuin wage, to wanting to see wales in the Puget Sound.

Reports are that he took off from Sea_Tac and used Mt Ranier as a visual. Did a circle and then headed back towards the sound.

[varg]

Yeah I don't know what to make of it. There's no evidence that he was anywhere near high enough to encounter hypoxia in what I've seen, but there is only preliminary info, short videos, and incomplete ATC communication available at this point, so it's really not possible to make a completely informed statement. Just based on what I've seen I'd say it's more likely actual intoxication or even a mental breakdown. From the short video I've seen he did come really close to not making it out of that sketchy barrel roll over the water. When I first heard of it I assumed he had learned to fly it in flight simulator or maybe was an aviation enthusiast, but the more I hear the things he says during the flight it seems like he had only the bare minimum skill and luck required to pull it off and really didn't have much in the way of skill or aviation related experience. That being said reducing pilot workload has been a major design objective in modern passenger aircraft so it's not like it would require any more than a cursory overview of the aircraft's systems and procedures to be able to do what he did. It's not like he tried to steal and fly a B36 or something, where you wouldn't likely know where to start when you got in the cockpit.

from one of the channels about crashes I'm subscribed to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZC8de10mq0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LLmF9tZoEE

this one has a moving map showing his flight path but I'm not sure of its accuracy or timing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD5sFrTGFnw

An interesting aside to this is the meme status the internet has given this guy. There are lots of people referring to him as Sky King and making image macros and edits featuring some of the more comical or odd things he said during the flight, even tribute videos. A little cult of personality springs up around some people who do weird or even bad stuff, they're like internet folk heroes.

[george graves]

I don't know what to make of it either. It's both crazy, sad and one for the history books???

I'm not interested in the morbid, or macabre aspect of aviation - like the same way some people go to a Nascar race. I like to look at things more from the perspective of the NTSB, finding out what when wrong and how to fix it.

The crash site also happened on at a place I go to at least once a month or so. And on a personal note, my Grandfather died in a turbulence/micro-burst/downdraft before there were warning systems. He hit his head on the cabin top when he undid his belt to strap in my infant cousin. There was a lawsuit, and millions paid to my fathers side of my family. Growing up I was told the reason the "fasten seat belts" sign was on, was because of him. So yea. Maybe I do look at thing differently then the average Joe.

this one has a moving map showing his flight path but I'm not sure of its accuracy or timing:

Yea, that one is fake. He circled around the south of the Puget Sound for at least 10-15 mins if not longer. I've tried to look up the tracking on flight aware, and it doesn't come up with anything.

I suspect he was at full throttle most of the time, and at low altitude - and I would take a guess that would eat up some fuel, no?

[george graves]

OK - this new ground control recording seems to show him taxi - 0 to 1:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LLmF9tZoEE

[BlackbirdM3]

How cool is this? A friend of mine shot this a couple months ago. It became his first cover shot on a magazine. (EAA's Sport Aviation)


I was hoping to see this at Oshkosh, but its still not quite ready to fly. They have done all the taxi tests, and been given clearance to fly it, but it hasn't happened yet.

Will

[flyboyx]

Yeah I don't know what to make of it. There's no evidence that he was anywhere near high enough to encounter hypoxia in what I've seen, but there is only preliminary info, short videos, and incomplete ATC communication available at this point, so it's really not possible to make a completely informed statement. Just based on what I've seen I'd say it's more likely actual intoxication or even a mental breakdown. From the short video I've seen he did come really close to not making it out of that sketchy barrel roll over the water. When I first heard of it I assumed he had learned to fly it in flight simulator or maybe was an aviation enthusiast, but the more I hear the things he says during the flight it seems like he had only the bare minimum skill and luck required to pull it off and really didn't have much in the way of skill or aviation related experience. That being said reducing pilot workload has been a major design objective in modern passenger aircraft so it's not like it would require any more than a cursory overview of the aircraft's systems and procedures to be able to do what he did. It's not like he tried to steal and fly a B36 or something, where you wouldn't likely know where to start when you got in the cockpit.

from one of the channels about crashes I'm subscribed to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZC8de10mq0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LLmF9tZoEE

this one has a moving map showing his flight path but I'm not sure of its accuracy or timing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD5sFrTGFnw

An interesting aside to this is the meme status the internet has given this guy. There are lots of people referring to him as Sky King and making image macros and edits featuring some of the more comical or odd things he said during the flight, even tribute videos. A little cult of personality springs up around some people who do weird or even bad stuff, they're like internet folk heroes.

I think he was just a combination of severe depression and drugs. There is about 0% possibility of hypoxia. The airplane pressurizes automatically as long as all doors are closed. Even if it didn’t, I don’t think he ever came close to achieving an altitude where that could have been an issue.

The average person needs to be above something like 16000’ for several minutes before cognitive reasoning is severely affected

[george graves]

The average person needs to be above something like 16000’ for several minutes before cognitive reasoning is severely affected

But each 1000 feet is like 10% less oxygen above 14k? All I know is that's it's logarithmic. Less and less as you go up. But that still doesn't explain his actions when he was at low. You are right.

Since this was all so public (the first Facebook/twitter crash with ATC audio before the crash?) I wonder how the NTSB will respond to it?

[FLYNAVY]

Nobody is getting hypoxia below 10-15k feet cabin altitude, unless breathing through an O2 mask and the O2 source itself is degraded/tainted. I don't think there are any certified airliners that don't pressurize to any worse than 8k ft cabin altitude all the way up to their service ceilings. No chance this was hypoxia.

[BlackbirdM3]

A few from Oshkosh.






Will

[BlackbirdM3]

Will

[Beau B]

Nice pictures from Oshkosh. Gotta love the staggered wing

[george graves]

Nice pictures from Oshkosh

Only a few (100?) million buck of planes there. Impressive assortment.

[FLYNAVY]

Great pics.....how many AD's were flying in that picture? Pretty cool, I bet that was some good noise!