Planes
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Having driven (and flown), in most Asian countries, they don't focus on anything. In front or around. Just go.
The incredible thing is that seems to work most of the time.
Works less well when they come and drive in NZ
Too true. Works better in Hong Kong than Horowhenua.
Empty roads with corners really screw it up.
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@Machpants said in Planes:
"When have you seen a Hunter flown this low and fast?" the caption says.
Well there was that one guy who flew one under Tower Bridge in London...
Yeah, I didn't write that.
Did you see Pollock (that should probably be Pillock - but I gotta admit it really would be tempting) do that?
So it holds true for me - I didn't see the Tower Bridge Hunter episode and have never seen one fly that low and fast.For those that don't know:
***On 5 April 1968, Pollock decided on his own initiative[4] to mark the occasion of the RAF anniversary with an unauthorised display. His flight left the soon-to-be-closed RAF Tangmere in Sussex to return to RAF West Raynham in Norfolk, a route that took them over London. Immediately after takeoff,[3] Pollock left the flight and flew low level. Having "beaten up"[Note 1] Dunsfold Aerodrome (Hawker's home airfield),[3] he then took his Hawker Hunter FGA.9 (XF442), a single-seater, ground-attack jet fighter, over London at low level, circled the Houses of Parliament three times[3] as a demonstration against Prime Minister Harold Wilson's government,[2] dipped his wings over the Royal Air Force Memorial on the Embankment[3] and finally flew under the top span of Tower Bridge. He later wrote of the decision to fly through Tower Bridge:"Until this very instant I'd had absolutely no idea that, of course, Tower Bridge would be there. It was easy enough to fly over it, but the idea of flying through the spans suddenly struck me. I had just ten seconds to grapple with the seductive proposition which few ground attack pilots of any nationality could have resisted. My brain started racing to reach a decision. Years of fast low-level strike flying made the decision simple . . .[3]"
Knowing that he was likely to be stripped of his flying status as a result of this display, he proceeded to "beat up" several airfields (Wattisham, Lakenheath and Marham) in inverted flight at an altitude of about 200 feet en route to his base at RAF West Raynham, where, within the hour, he was formally arrested[3] by Flying Officer Roger Gilpin.
Although other pilots had flown under the upper span of Tower Bridge, Pollock was the first to do so in a jet aircraft.[3]***
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Those planes they developed at the end of the war were they stretched piston engine technology were all beasts
The hawker sea fury , ta152 , the last marks of the spitfire , the hornet and my favourites the bearcat and Skyraider
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@jegga Sea fury is a fcking beast. Love them second only to the Mosquito for me - well a couple of others too.
Was at this display:
Sadly I don't think that we have one in NZ anymore. Incredible that they competed against jets (Mig 15 IIRC) in the Korean war, and were at the bay of pigs as well. 1960s. Owesome.
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@jegga I know about Sky raiders because of this:
Cathay Pacific VR-HEU incident
On 26 July 1954, two Douglas Skyraiders from the aircraft carriers USS Philippine Sea and Hornet shot down two Chinese PLAAF Lavochkin fighters off the coast of Hainan Island while searching for survivors after the shooting down of a Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 Skymaster airliner three days previously.[15][16][17].If you don't know about it:
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@jegga I know about Sky raiders because of this:
Cathay Pacific VR-HEU incident
On 26 July 1954, two Douglas Skyraiders from the aircraft carriers USS Philippine Sea and Hornet shot down two Chinese PLAAF Lavochkin fighters off the coast of Hainan Island while searching for survivors after the shooting down of a Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 Skymaster airliner three days previously.[15][16][17].If you don't know about it:
They show up in Vietnam movies a lot . They could carry a load of gear for a single engined plane .
Those Chinese pilots must have been pretty inexperienced, Skyraiders weren’t exactly known as a dog fighter .
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Those Chinese pilots must have been pretty inexperienced,
In more recent times it is hard to mistake a 737 too...
Or a dc6
RAF Veteran Could Be Responsible For The 1961 Plane Crash Of U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld
Nearly 60 years later, the mystery surrounding the peacekeeping Secretary-General's death over Zambia may finally be put to rest.
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@jegga That's quite some story and I had never heard of it. Likely that we will never know the truth - again. Gotta love a conspiracy - some of them might be correct too.
In 2005, one U.N. official claimed that when he had examined the Secretary General’s body in the morgue, there was a suspicious wound that could have been a bullet hole in his head. The wound is not visible in any of the post-mortem photographs, although there is evidence that some of these photos were airbrushed or deliberately angled to hide the supposed bullet hole.
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@jegga Sea fury is a fcking beast. Love them second only to the Mosquito for me - well a couple of others too.
Was at this display:
Sadly I don't think that we have one in NZ anymore. Incredible that they competed against jets (Mig 15 IIRC) in the Korean war, and were at the bay of pigs as well. 1960s. Owesome.
Missed this post, yeah they are very cool. The poms took a while to realise radials were the way to go in a carrier aircraft. The griffon engined spitfires were supposed to be brutal things to fly, I think thats the version Tim Wallis crashed in .
The final evolution of the spitfire was the spiteful , looked cool but they cancelled it and incorporated some design element into the last spitfire. Check out the undercarriage, way wider than the narrow track of the spitfire and me 109
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@jegga Oh and Tim crashed twice from memory. Ran out of fuel in the first one, the second one was the serious one on landing.
A pilot told me the Griffon was quite different to the merlin to fly and he must have mentally switched into Merlin landing mode and the Griffon owned him.
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The griffon engined spitfires were supposed to be brutal things to fly,
Actually most of those high powered late WW2 things were. That amount of thrust and asymmetric power rotating around a tail tragger required some skill.
What was the deal with contra rotating propellors? The last spits had them , was that to try and minimise the effects of the increased power?
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A pilot told me the Griffon was quite different to the merlin to fly and he must have mentally switched into Merlin landing mode and the Griffon owned him.
Yeah I had heard that too.
What was the deal with contra rotating propellors? The last spits had them , was that to try and minimise the effects of the increased power?
Yes. Torque effect and a spiral of airflow around the fuse.
There is also an aerodynamic affect when you lift the tail in a dragger (name escapes me right now). It is a balance to apply power and maintain directional control. Not enough power you don't get airborne, too much and the thing can flip on it's back.Fun ay.
Grumman F8F Bearcat - Wikipedia
