The General Airplane Thread

[homeforsummer]

I have just now discovered the existence of the Aero Ae-45, first flown in 1947. Quite a nice shape to my eyes.

 

[Ze Elephant]

It kinda gives me some DH-11 vibes. Quite nice, but it looks a little cramped.

 

[Populuxe]

I have just now discovered the existence of the Aero Ae-45, first flown in 1947. Quite a nice shape to my eyes.

View attachment 824613​

The cockpit glass going all the way to the front of the fuselage is a really nice look, in my opinion.

Here are some more photos of the 737 backlog at King County Airport in Seattle. (My previous photos were at Renton Municipal Airport.)

 

[Adam41]

At Frankfurt Airport. I used to love the look of these as a kid. Still do.

 

[kikie]

I really like these big R/C planes.

 

[Populuxe]

I really like these big R/C planes.

Now that looks like fun. And it's a great way to bring back planes that are either no longer air-worthy, in existence, or even never were, just by building r/c replicas.

 

[kikie]

The Flying-V. A revolutionary way of travelling?

 

[Dan]

I’m so tired of these ridiculous text to speech aviation videos on YouTube. Just speak into a microphone!

 

[wfooshee]

And why even do it when the screen is filled with the script instead of content???? If you want me to read something, post a text somewhere. That was 15 seconds worth of reading, certainly NOT 3 minutes' worth of material!

(And 15 seconds is all I gave it, anyway. The jerk probably still got paid, though...)

 

[ScottPuss20]

The Flying-V. A revolutionary way of travelling?

That would be quite a sight, if it ever gets off the ground.

 

[gnomefromnome]

At Gathering of the War Birds

 

[GTV0819]

Damn, one after another..

https://samchui.com/2019/06/30/boeing-737-max-investigations-broaden-to-787-dreamliner/#.XRitvWjQGyU

 

[Omnis]

Anyone know whether the Boeing software scandal is because it's architected from scratch in Clojure? Maybe its a JVM bug? Or just poor decision-making? Any good videos or deep dives on what exactly the problem is?

 

[Populuxe]

When Boeing was headquartered in Seattle and had strong unions, they built the best aircraft in the world and were successful because of it. Now they are openly hostile to the much weaker unions, have moved the headquarters to Chicago, hundreds of miles from the nearest production plant, and they are farming as much work as possible to outside vendors, all in the name of increasing their profit margins.

I'm from Seattle and my dad is a retired Boeing engineer. When I was young, we used to say "If it's not Boeing, I'm not going." Now the planes are so shoddily made, I'd much rather fly on an Airbus.

 

[GTV0819]

When Boeing was headquartered in Seattle and had strong unions, they built the best aircraft in the world and were successful because of it. Now they are opening hostile to the much weaker unions, have moved the headquarters to Chicago, hundreds of miles from the nearest production plant, and they are farming as much work as possible to outside vendors, all in the name of increasing their profit margins.

I'm from Seattle and my dad is a retired Boeing engineer. When I was young, we used to say "If it's not Boeing, I'm not going." Now the planes are so shoddily made, I'd much rather fly on an Airbus.

I wonder what happened to their quality control in the recent years. 💡

 

[kikie]

Airbus introduces a new concept. The "Bird of Prey".

 

[Jawehawk]

I wanna take the time to share with you all what I think has actually topped the brilliant Thunderbirds and Solo Turk F-16 livery. In Denmark, we recently celebrated the 800 year anniversary for our flag, and the air force decided to get in on it by painting one of their F-16 MLU's in the appropriate colors. The airframe will serve out the remainder of its career with this livery. I think it's pretty gorgeous.

I take no credit for the photo.

I'm going to miss the beautiful F-16 once the F-35 has replaced them all over Europe...

 

[Populuxe]

Last night I watched this video of a Martin flying boat taking a 9+ hour flight to Oshkosh. What a beautiful plane.

 

[wfooshee]

He mentioned the museum at Pensacola NAS at the end of the video. They don't have one of those, but the have a P5M Marlin that is the biggest flying boat I've ever seen, and that thing in the video is slightly bigger! I see the Wikipedia article on the Martin boat lists one destined for the museum, but put on hold.

Here's the P5M as they received it, and as they restored it. It lives inside, now, in the building they call Hangar Bay One. This aircraft was actually designated as SP-5B, equipped for anti-submarine patrol at the end of its service life.

 

[Ze Elephant]

A great video. I love all of the content Kermit Weeks puts out. His Kermie Cam series are wonderful looks into how it is to actually prep, pre-flight, and fly aircraft that most of us could only dream of coming in contact with.

 

[Rallywagon]

Was out dropping my daughter off to a friends house and passed these at the Oakland international airport in Waterford MI.
A Gloster Meteor

And I am guessing these are Aero L29's, but I'm not 100% sure.





I am guessing they were part of a show that was out here last weekend. I also saw what looked to be a Mustang and an F8 Bearcat. However those were parked out in areas I couldn't get at to take pictures.

 

[Venom800tt]

A ton of recent pics:

 

[Rallywagon]

A ton of recent pics:

These make me miss living by ELP and Biggs Airfield. Always a guppy or some NASA aircraft and lots of Airforce aircraft flying around.

 

[John Wells]

Bristol Hercules 14 Cyl Radial Engine, powered Lancaster, Halifax, Beaufighter.

 

[Ze Elephant]

The Kalamazoo Air Zoo is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. The Air Zoo houses the only remaining SR-71B trainer left, and a group of former crew members approached the Air Zoo about having a special event centered on the aircraft.

So on the first weekend of October, they are hosting the SR-71 Spy-Posium with featured presentations and opportunities to meet some of the men that worked with and flew these beautiful birds. On top of that, there's another event on October 3rd.

The Blackbird Affair.

A four and a half hour event with similar presentations, opportunities to meet crewmen, detailed sessions on various parts of the aircraft, and...

The open cockpit opportunity of a lifetime to the lucky 50 people that managed to get tickets to sit in the SR-71B!

The best part of all of this is... I'm one of the 50!

 

[wfooshee]

It's awesome to get to see an SR-71 anywhere, and finding one that's one-of-a-kind, the rarest of the rare, is really cool! The only "longtail" SR-71 is at Eglin's Air Force Armament Museum near where I live. It had an extension added to the tail to carry extra equipment, but the resulting weight shift compromised its handling, and progress, i.e. miniaturization of the electronics, made the extra capabilities possible within the normal airframe, so only the one was done.

20 SR-71s survive of 32 built.

Now you want rare, look at the A-12, the predecessor of the SR-71. Only 15 built, 9 survive, all in museums. This one is at Battleship Park in Mobile, Alabama. Not one-of-a-kind, but one of very few!

But even that's not as uncommon as this next one, also at Battleship Park's museum: one of only two YF-17s ever built. The YF-17 was up against the YF-16 for the lightweight fighter role, and lost, but the Navy developed it into their F/A-18, slightly enlarged from the YF-17.

 

[KM964]

In just a few short hours AA will begin ferrying their remaining MD80s to ROW for storage. It’s gonna be a sad day tomorrow, and truly the end of an era for AA. No more true bare metal either - N921NN is just a wrap.

I’ll be out at DFW catching not only the ferry flights but the final rev flight - which is fittingly on the last MD80 built, N984TW.

Also have a nice backlog of pictures to gradually dump here, as I’ve been to MIA, SEA, BFI, PAE, RNT, BOS, and SFO to spot this year in addition to my two home airports of DFW and DAL. I’ll be doing some light spotting at DEN in two weeks too.

 

[Gotbeefboy564]

I’ve seen the Blackbird at the AirZoo Museum and the one at the National Air and Space Museum I’ll have to go back to the Kalamazoo one to get a better picture of the Blackbird I haven’t been there in a long time.

 

[Crash]

Also have a nice backlog of pictures to gradually dump here, as I’ve been to MIA, SEA, BFI, PAE, RNT, BOS, and SFO to spot this year in addition to my two home airports of DFW and DAL. I’ll be doing some light spotting at DEN in two weeks too.

Nice. PAE is always fun with the variety of planes coming in and out, and you'll see a collection of liveries for large planes that you may not otherwise see anywhere else as planes get tested, delivered or on flying regular revenue.

 

[KM964]

Nice. PAE is always fun with the variety of planes coming in and out, and you'll see a collection of liveries for large planes that you may not otherwise see anywhere else as planes get tested, delivered or on flying regular revenue.

PAE was fun indeed. I did the factory tour as well, which was world class in my opinion. We saw a 747-8F destined for UPS on the final assembly line. And in the other hall, we saw 787s destined for Aeromexico, Norwegian, and EVA, along with the 777X prototype in the distance with the wingtips folded up. As for the flight line outside, I was able to make out some 787s in various stages of production for El Al, Korean, WestJet, Hainan Airlines, Juneyao Air, and Uzbekistan Airways.

BFI was fun too - I went about two weeks before the MAX was grounded and was able to snag some test flights for the MAX and the KC46A Pegasus. Would love to go back now and see the overflow situation.