Back From a Long Hiatus

I'm finally back from quite a long hiatus, nearly a year. Well these things happen when you transfer schools and begin doing many more things. Anyway enough with the excuses, I have a years worth of aviation news to catch up on.

Once again we are waiting on the 787 to roll out for real this time, the roll out last year on 7-8-07 was a bit lame now that it has been more than a year and it has not taken to the sky. The other problem is the Air Force's new tanker contract, which I personally think may never be resolved, not really. It has taken far too long for the government to come to a decision about this matter. I read a quote six months ago when the initial final decision was made that expressed something to the effect that if the deadline was 25 January, he should have asked to make sure it was 2008, not 2009. The bureaucracy that goes into these types of matters is absolutely ridiculous.

Enough about that. The last year has seen me transfer from Western Michigan University to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. I'm still pursuing the same degree, with a slightly different title, Aerospace Engineering with a focus in Aeronautics. The move was a good one for me although I have really missed all my flight team buddies from WMU. The move was prompted after finally getting my chance at the military career I've wanted for as long as I can remember. I was able to pick up a full ride Navy ROTC scholarship which has been absolutely great. The NROTC at Embry-Riddle is one of the largest in the country despite it being just 5 years old and it is already producing the largest number of pilots for the Navy second only to the Naval Academy.

A little bit on the flight team business. I started on the flight team at WMU, the Sky Broncos, we took first place in our region, region III, and fourth in the nation. My event is aircraft recognition, you are given normally 60 slides in of aircraft and have to identify the manufacturer, model number, and common name associated with the aircraft. The catch is that you are only given three seconds to view each slide, which makes things a bit more difficult, when you are experience like most of the top reccers, as they are called, this is more than enough time. The first 50 slides are multiple choice and you are given 15 seconds after each slide to make a decision about the aircraft that was seen, the last ten are fill in the blank and you are given 30 seconds to come to your decision about the aircraft. In the regional back in 2006 I took first place followed by three of my teammates, then in the national I took 6 place. This year I only participated in the national competition with my new team at ERAU, the Eagles, I was able to take second, missing first by only one point. If you'd like to view more on this visit www.nifa.us for more information.

Partially as a result of this I have had little to no time to do leisure flying on my own, so I have had very little flight time in the last year, I'm hoping to remedy that over the next month in preparation for the Eagles Flight Team back in Daytona in the fall. This year I flew for the first time a G1000 equipped Cessna 172, very nice, but I miss the round dials. I have only two gripes with the system, I'm to tall and the extended dash makes it impossible for me to see the comm frequencies on the pilots side display, and the fuel gauges are horizontal. To me the fuel gauges should be vertical since the fuel doesn't drain out of them in a horizontal manner, I'm sure it was a space saving design on the screen, but it just doesn't register with my brain.

This summer I was on active duty for a brief stint enjoying all of what the Navy has to offer in a program called Career Orientation Training for Midshipman or CORTRAMID. It was extremely fun seeing everything the Navy does on a regular day to day basis, as well as getting to meet Midshipman from all around the country that I'll soon be serving alongside. Of course for me the best parts were the flying that we were able to do. Every Midshipman that physically qualified had the chance to fly the T-34C Turbo Mentor. Let me tell you it was a blast! You felt cool from the instant you were geared up and walking out to the aircraft, kitted out in flight suit, harness, gloves, and flight helmet, you felt like you were really a Naval Aviator. Each of us got a 20 to 30 minute flight in the Mentor. My pilot was a Marine Corps C-130 pilot by trade who was doing a tour as a primary flight instructor. We took off from NAS Oceana taxiing out through rows and rows of F/A-18 C-Fs watching them takeoff and land through the expansive greenhouse canopy was amazing. Once we got airborne he held it in ground effect until the end then pitched up 60 degrees in a climbing left turn until we had reached 500 feet and our on course heading. We flew out until we were in Northern North Carolina over the Blackwater compound that is there then climbed to 6,500 ft and did a wide clearing turn. Then he executed an Immelman after which we ended up at about 8,000 ft and 90 knots of airspeed. The stick shaker was going off as we rolled level indicating we were close to stall speed. We then dove for a little airspeed executed a loop followed immediately by a barrel roll, then an aileron roll, and finally a split S. After the split S we made a turn and were now down around 4,500 feet, then he gave me control and we did an aileron roll, that was cool! I then had control from there until 5 miles out from Oceana. Most of the way we were doing 200 knots at only 500 feet. We had to stay below the pattern altitude of the F/A-18s, that is the reason we were so low.

Throughout the rest of CORTRAMID we toured squadrons and flew simulators as well as received two more rides, this time in helicopters. We flew the MH-60S all around the greater Norfolk area with the doors open for about an hour, that was pretty neat! We also flew the CH-53E during Marine week on a short ride, not as interesting as the 60 but still fun for me at least, it seemed to put others to sleep though. It is nicknamed the $h!tter because all sorts of fluids are leaking on to you , in the picture below you can see some of those fluids on one of the guys helmet. They told us there was nothing to worry about, but that if we noticed it stop leaking we should tell them!

Here is a link to a youtube video I created highlighting some of what went on, a lot is missing since we weren't allowed to have cameras at many sights for national security purposes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDzVLHKXh0I

The 787 and Spirit/Opportunity

Boeing one week ago rolled out their newest aircraft the 787 Dreamliner. Basically it looks a lot like a 757 with a smaller tail, different unconventional cockpit windows, and the advanced raked winglets. Overall it is a pretty good looking aircraft and looks to be extremely powerful. If you were following this at all you might have seen some photos Boeing wasn't to happy about. An Airliners.net photographer had parked himself on the highway that passes by the Boeing final assembly facility in Everett, Washington and was able to snag some shots even before it was painted. After it passed out of the assembly building and was being towed to the paint building is when he was able to get the pictures. I'm really looking forward to seeing it fly in about a month.

The big news with NASA is that they may finally lose one of the Mars rovers. They plan on sending it into a valley that it may not be able to get out of because of the lack of sunlight. Spirit and Opportunity have now been on Mars for more than 3.5 years. That is an incredible feat since they were only meant to last just 3 months, they have now passed 13 times their life expectancy. Hopefully they'll be able to gain a significant amount of information for future missions to Mars.

Another update I forgot about until I was writing this. Cirrus has released a full scale mock up of their entry into the VLJ market. To me it looks like Cirrus has lost touch with their other aircraft. Their VLJ looks like a hydro jet boat nearly exactly, they just removed the forward section and added wings. The interior looks nothing like an aircraft at all. There are no backup steam gauges just a straight panel with absolutely nothing their. I'm sure it will be different when they actually start building a real one, but for now it just does not look very good.

The Best Looking Fighters

This is a good sign that I keep coming back. As promised I'm going to continue my best looking aircraft trend today with the fighter aircraft, some production and at least one that never made it that far. I'm going to skip WWI because I'm not a big fan of that era and go straight to WWII.

To me probably the best looking as well as the best raw performance numbers of WWII came from a single aircraft that never made it to production. The Martin Baker MB.5. It has earned itself the name the British Mustang from its obvious similarities to the North American P-51 Mustang. I think however that it has better lines that the P-51 and it certainly has better performance numbers. I've read that only two of these aircraft were ever built the first having been lost in a crash during the initial testing. The second was destroyed later in the 1960's I believe an a British artillery range. Today there is a group in the Western United States working to build a replica of this aircraft, but it is not an exact replica and is somewhat shorter than the original. It has parts that have been borrowed from several other aircraft including its lookalike the P-51. My goal is to someday have the time and the money to build an exact replica of it, the problem is that I don't believe that there a plans for this aircraft out there, although I have a feeling Martin Baker probably has the somewhere in an archive. If I really have a lot of time I'd like to go to the artillery range that the second was destroyed on and try and see if there is anything left. I think that is a bit ambitious though.

Another aircraft that I have a bit of an affinity towards from the WWII era is the Goodyear F2G sometimes referred to as the Super Corsair. From a basic glance it looks just like a normal Chance Vought F4U Corsair, until you notice the bubble canopy and noticeably longer cowling. There is something about that bubble canopy that makes me like the Super Corsair better than the standard Corsair. It also has under that cowling a considerable increase in power, I believe it is something on the order of nearly 1,000hp but I don't really feel like getting up to get the book I know it's in. Other than the canopy and the cowling it shares the same awesome inverted gull wing as the original Corsair.

Now on to the Korean War Era, from which I think only one aircraft emerges, the North American F-86 Sabre. This plane is always a stunner except when it is a D model and has the radar in the nose which just wrecks the aesthetics of the aircraft. When ever you see a nice one with the polished aluminum, swept wings, bubble canopy, and crucible tail you know you've seen something special. This I would argue is the first REAL jet that the United States produced. Sure there was the P-53, P-80, F-84, etc., but the Sabre was the first that actually looked fast, and it was. I just cannot say enough about how cool it looks when it is in the air, whether it has the speed brakes deployed, gear down, or totally clean, it just looks awesome.

From the Vietnam era came possibly the best looking series of jet aircraft. The Northrop T-38 Talon, F-5E Tiger II, and the F-5 Freedom Fighter. Of these I have a particular interest in the T-38, and the two seat models of the F-5E and F-5. Something about that extra bit of canopy makes them look just a bit better. When it comes down to it there cannot be a simpler aircraft out there. Okay there probably is, but from first glance you can tell it was meant for one thing, going fast! I think the stubby wings that look razor thin, the long pointy nose, and the contours on the engines make this jet look positively brilliant. When they are kept up well and shiny and in the all black schemes of Holloman or Beale Air Force Bases are when I like them the best, but I won't make a fuss over any of the others.

Now we are into the modern stuff and I can get back to possibly my favorite company Dassault. With the next several aircraft I mention I am going to be extremely specific as to the model of the aircraft that I like best, because in most cases it makes a world of difference. The Dassault fighter aircraft that I think has the best lines is the Dassault 2000D Mirage. The D is the two seat model and like with the T-38 something just looks better with that longer canopy. This aircraft again has an extremely pointy nose, intake spikes, a beautiful delta wing, and an F-16 style afterburner ring. If you've seen the videos on Youtube and Google video of these aircraft you know what I'm talking about when I say how impressive they are airborne. I've yet to see one in real life but I'm really looking forward to that day. If you've not checked it out the movie Les Chevaliers du Ciel, Skyfighters in English, is a great movie to see this aircraft in, in a variety of forms. It is a pretty cheesy movie, but it does have some of the best flying scenes I've ever seen.

The next aircraft that is up is the McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle. This is the plane that I grew up wanting to fly, although that will never happen since the Air Force does not like nut allergies, but I really don't want to get into that whole story right now, maybe some other time. The Strike Eagle in its dark grey paint scheme just looks better than the normal Eagle. I think it also helps that it is a two seater, again with my liking the longer canopy, I also liked the fact that you worked as a team in this aircraft with your WSO. The other major plus for this aircraft are the conformal fuel tanks that seemed to round out the aircraft and give it a somewhat cleaner look than the normal Eagle. Outside pure aesthetics the another factor that drew me so much to this aircraft was the dual role that it can play. While maintaining the same capability as the typical air to air arena that has the slogan, "Not a pound for air to ground", it can also slug it out in the attack role. The biggest draw though came from what I had read, and later saw what it can do near the ground. With its terrain following radar, FLIR pod and other accessories they fly the Strike Eagle at a hundred feet off the deck in all weather, day or night, that is cool! I heard somewhere that pilots describe that type of flying as being 1/2 second from the ground, WOW!

Next we have an aircraft that I do have the possibility of actually flying in the future the Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet. Let me just get this out there for anyone who actually cares the Navy is considerably more lenient when it comes to your medical and they won't disqualify you for stupid things that don't really affect anything. Back on topic, again the F/A-18F Super Hornet is the two seat model of the Super Hornet and more closely fills the role previously occupied by the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. Again that longer canopy just does it for me. There are a couple of things that I like about the Super Hornet better than the Hornet. The first of these and the most obvious is the change in intakes from the round to the square. I think the square just look a lot better. The next less obvious is the fact that the aircraft in general is cleaner than the original Hornet. If you look at the normal Hornet you'll see that just aft of the cockpit mounted on the leading edge wing root section there is a large metal plate, that looks almost like a strike. It is secured there by only two bolts and is actually there because of the slip stream that the Hornet was producing was putting to much stress on the vertical stabilizers. These are noticeably absent on the Super Hornet as well as the the fact that the leading edge wing roots are much larger and on the Hornet. In general the Super Hornet is a much larger aircraft, nearly three feet longer than its predecessor and with more than 100 square feet more wing area that allows the ability to carry two more weapons pylons for a total of 11.

Anyway I have a bit of a bone to pick with some pilots and mechanics, if your going to be a pilot or mechanic you should know exactly what you are talking about when you speak. On both occasions two military guys have come across to me as being somewhat ignorant of their respective branches of the military. The first was an ex A-10 pilot who interviewed me for admission to the Air Force Academy and when he asked what I wanted to fly I told him the F-15E Strike Eagle, he thought it was a pure air to air aircraft and that's the whole reason they put the seat in for the guy to operate the radar. I kind of explained to him how it was a multi role aircraft but I don't think he believed me and I did not really want to push during an interview. First of all Strike is right in its name, second it has earned the nickname Beagle, for Bomb Eagle, and third Mudhen for its low level flying, what would a fighter be doing down low? Anyway the second guy was a young Marine Corps F/A-18 mechanic that I bumped into in a store wearing a WMU flight team shirt and I got talking to for a while. I explained how I had just received an NROTC scholarship and one day might be flying the very aircraft he works on. Then he proceeded to tell me how the Navy and Marines were going to be getting a new aircraft right about the time I graduated from college and would be entering the pipeline. He told me about the wonders of the F-35 Raptor. I just sat there and played dumb like I had no idea what he was talking about and how cool of a new aircraft it would be, all the while thinking to myself how incredibly ignorant this guy was sounding. It was only a couple of weeks earlier that I had been at the United States Air Force Museum and overheard a grandfather telling his grandson about the F-11 Raptor, hmm another aircraft I don't know about apparently. Anyway I hate it when people talk like they know a lot about something, especially aircraft, and then end up coming off like they know nothing at all. I feel sorry for that little boy who now has no idea what the F-22 RAPTOR actually is. By the way if any of you are thinking why didn't he write F/A-22 I'm still ahead of you, because from what I've heard the Air Force is not actually going to use the F-22 for the attack role, which I think is a good idea since they cost so much. I may have to come back and change this bit here in the future as I just read in Air Forces Monthly I believe it was that the first production F/A-22 just rolled of the assembly line. If the Air Force is producing two versions of the Raptor as a pure air to air, and a dual role aircraft this is the first I've heard of it. That's the end of my rant I guess.

Round Two

Well I'm glad I have committed myself somewhat to this, I think it will be fun. Anyway on the topic of space it is good that the shuttle Atlantis safely made it to orbit yesterday, unfortunately I was unable to watch the launch as I was playing in a soccer game. The game was the first I had played in 19 months and it was definitely good to get out there again.

Now I need to get back on topic and describe to you some of the aircraft that I think are aesthetically pleasing. These aircraft will not include some of my favorite aircraft that aren't so pleasing to the eye, namely my favorite aircraft the Dassault F-1 Mirage.

I'm going to do this in order of size most likely so I'll start from the smaller aircraft first and work up to the big ones.

So here it goes the first aircraft being the Cirrus SR-20 and SR-22. I can't say enough about the nice lines that these aircraft have. Everything is swept back and almost elegant in nature and I would only change several things to make them even more pleasing to the eye. On the SR-22 I would change up the wingtip extension that they added, it just does not look good from up close or when you see it in wing shots. The other thing that I would change are the exhaust stacks on the SR-20 they are way to long, I understand that this is for functional purposes, but they just don't look right.

The next aircraft up in class that I think has good lines is the Beechcraft 60 Duke. Everything about this aircraft has been swept back and looks like it was built solely for speed. There really isn't anything about this aircraft that I would want to change. Although the modernized versions with winglets I don't think look as good as those with clean wings. Some of the modernized variants have picked up aft body strakes which I think are a real plus aesthetically. The only thing I would really like to change about the duke is its reputation. It seems that they are maintenance hogs and so have gained the reputation as hangar queens, although to date I have seen several flying so I don't know if this is actually the case. AT least one has been granted the privilege of wearing Pratt & Whitney PT-6s and I think it looks fantastic.

Stepping up once again we move to the Dornier Do-328. This regional turboprop airliner is definitely the best looking regional airliner out there. With speeds nearing that of jets, clean lines, a high performance wing, and an awesome flight deck its no wonder I don't hear anything bad about this aircraft. I must advise you that it does have an extremely ugly sibling, the Do-328JET model which has the six bladed turboprops replaced by turbofans. This aircraft sounds as good as it looks, ten years ago I had the privilege of flying in one and it was one of the quietest aircraft I have ever been on, and I was in a wing seat very near those monstrous Pratt & Whitney PW119 engines.

The next aircraft on this list is the Dassault 900 Falcon. For me nearly all the Dassault aircraft should been on this best looking list with the exception of only a few. Marcel Dassault formerly Bloch must have really been inspired when he began creating his aircraft because they all look superb. For me the 900 exemplifies this beauty it has flowing lines, a nice wide fuselage, the ducted third engine, and the typical Dassault business jet tail. It seems everything on this aircraft is faired in and just perfect. My uncle had the privilege of flying this aircraft and he said he absolutely loved it.

In the next class up lies the Boeing 757. To some this aircraft is some what unattractive because its fuselage is so slender and long, and its engines are so big and powerful, but to me these are the things that make it such a good looking aircraft. Pilots consider this aircraft to be the sports car of the airliners because of how overpowered it is. I have heard a story through one of my friends about some pilot he had talked about how one day with no passengers on board and a light fuel load they did a performance takeoff in the aircraft and pitched the nose back to other worldly attitude. If you have not yet seen it I suggest searching the New Zealand Air Force 757 flyby on Youtube, that's what I'm talking about. As with the Dornier Do-328 the 757 has an ugly sibling known as the 757-300 which has been stretched to a length that just looks unsafe. The 757 features aft leaning twin bogey landing gear that look like claws off a falcon when in their down and locked position and this further adds to its aura as a bird of prey.

Finally there is the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar. This is the best looking of all the three holers, although I am somewhat partial to the MD-11 as well. This aircraft like many of the others on this list has everything tucked away and faired in. Something about the sheer size of this aircraft makes it impressive. Although this aircraft did not sell very well in comparison to its opponents the DC-10 and 747 it was probably the best of these aircraft. Lockheed spent a year extra working everything out on this aircraft so that it was absolutely a dream to fly. I've heard stories about pilots of this aircraft waking up in the middle of the night and going to sit with this aircraft it meant so much to them.

Those are my favorites for the civilian side of things, I'll be back at some point to give my military aircraft, and I may even give my helicopter favorites, if I'm in a good mood.