Plane Tales

Robin Olds was a hard drinking, hard working man who led from the front in a way that inspired his men to become a great fighting force. He only became frustrated when he saw mistakes being made by those above him who should have known better and he went out of his way to make his feelings known. He defined what it meant to be a fighter pilot, not only in the air but on the ground with the stunningly beautiful Hollywood actress, Ella Raines, the first of his 4 wives. The court-martial of General William "Billy" Mitchell 1925     West Point students   A P-38 Lightning A digital representation of SCAT II   A Bf109   Olds and his P51 Mustang SCAT VI   A P80 Shooting Star   The Gloster Meteor   An F86 Sabre of the 71st, Hat in the Ring Sqn   The F4 Phantom   Robin Olds completes his 100th combat mission   Robin Olds in Vietnam after his 4th Mig kill   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to those images in the Public Domain, the Bundesarchive, the USAF, Digital Combat Simulator, Ruffneck88, USAF National Museum and RuthAS.

A recent news programme caught my eye when I realised it involved our great friends at the Farnborough Aviation Sciences Trust museum. It reminded me of the group of sadistic so-called doctors who populated the Institute of Aviation Medicine and tortured generations of unsuspecting and innocent RAF aircrew in machines such as the one the article featured, a centrifuge! This aforementioned device which resembles a vast witch’s ducking stool crossed with an iron maiden, first operated in 1955 but was decommissioned as recently as 2019 and has now received Grade 2 protection.   The Institute of Aviation Medicine   The Farnborough Centrifuge   The Cecil Hotel with it's red and white ornate frontage   The august medical journal, the Lancet   Early versions of oxygen masks   An early mobile decompression chamber   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, FAST museum, The Library of Congress, those images within the Public Domain and the National Museum of Health & Medicine.  

The story of my military flying career continues with the new challenge of flying the FA/18 Hornet round the beautiful skies of Australia.   The official crest of No 77 Sqn RAAF with its Grumpy Monkey   The 77 Sqn Mirages   The helmet fitting   An FA/18A cockpit     Sunset   The Head Up Display   The location of RAAF Williamtown   Firing the gun   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Nick Anderson and Google Earth.

Featured in a Scientific magazine which offered a first look inside the USAF's new jet fighter, the F-89 Scorpion was to have an interesting history which involved the Battle of Palmdale and a top secret Canadian UFO! A Scientific Magazine cutaway drawing   The Fly-off competitors   The Northrop F89 Scorpion     The 437th Fighter Interceptor Squadron   An F6F Hellcat red drone   Mighty Mouse rockets   1st Lt Moncla   The Canadian UFO   The official USAF report   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Scientific magazine, the USAF, USN, NASA, SDASM, RKO Pictures and those available through Fair Use and Public Domain.

Arguably one of the most talented and innovative aircraft developers of his time, John Knudsen Northrop had long sought an aircraft design that could start a revolution… a craft with minimum drag and a level of lift unachievable in any other form. Jack, as John Northrop was usually known, pursued his dream of building a pure flying wing strategic bomber that would exceed the capabilities of anything else his less imaginative competitors were designing. The gliders of Otto Lilienthal   The Armstrong Whitworth AW-52   The Avion/Northrop Experimental No1 pusher    The remains of a Horton flying wing   The Northrop N1M   Nortons XB35   The XP-79 fighter   The XB-49   The YB-35s being broken up at the cancelation of the project   The final successful B-2 Spirit     Images shown under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, the Library of Congress, Northrop, National Museum of the Air Force, Michael.katzmann, the IWM, Sanjay Acharya, the National Archive and NASA.

It was an unpopular aircraft because, well… a lot of aircrew were superstitious. They were renown for carrying lucky charms, doing things a certain way and never daring to change the habit because it worked for them last time. Their machine was a B17 nicknamed Old 666 taken from the last 3 digits of its tail number 41-2666 and they were the Eager Beavers!   Old 666   The Martin B-26 Marauder   The B-17 bombing Japanese shipping North of Australia   The B-17's waist guns   The route for their recce sortie over Bougainville   The Japanese Zero   A Zero passes close aboard   The damage to Old 666   The brave crew fight the Zeros off   Jay Zeamer receives his Medal of Honor     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAAF, Mark Wagner, USAF, USAAC, Gary Fortington, US National Archives and Records Administration, SDASM, Steve Jurvetson and those in the Public Domain or orphaned.

The conclusion of one of the hardest flying courses in the Royal Air Force, the QWI course.  What faced us was the culmination of all our efforts over the past months of flying in the form of a week of intense work, drawing together everything we had learned. We had to fly a series of missions against all comers, demonstrating our level of leadership, control, tactics, formation management, aggression and skill. These sorties were complex and demanding, involving tactics we devised to allow us to fly without the use of the radio from start to finish. The RAF's F4 Phantom   The East German border   The Nicholson Trophy for best student on the course   Off to a specialist burns unit in an RAF Search and Rescue Sea King   Packing up our married quarter for Australia   The delights of Hong Kong   My tropical uniform   The last leg to to Australia   Our little married Quarter at RAAF Williamtown   Meeting our neighbours at street BBQ   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF and the author.

The 1920’s and 30’s were times of radical societal changes, particularly in the freedoms that women then demanded. The suffragette movement, the contributions made by women in the first world war and other dramatic events had clearly shown that forward looking women were no longer going to be content with the roles that men decided they were suited for. Aviation played its part in allowing women the freedom to tackle challenges that were previously denied to them, a fight for equality continues to this day.  It is right that we celebrate those early pioneers who took to the air and led the way. The Suffragette movement which paved the way for woman's emancipation   Will Hay, one of Amy's flying instructors   Amy's planned route to Australia   Amy's Gypsy Moth, "Jason"   Amy in India   Amy arrives in Australia   An Airspeed Oxford and notice of Amy's "MISSING BELIEVED KILLED," telegram   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to those in the Public Domain, the National Library of Australia, the UK National Archives, Bob Brown, the Queenslander, SADSM and those of unknown copyright.

An air hostess calmly walked through the crashing airliner telling the passengers, “Please fasten your safety-belts. Keep your seats.” Then she returned to the galley near the tail, sat herself down… and waited. One of the passengers had seen oil spurting from an engine and on the flight deck, Captain Anderson was nursing his aircraft in. The engine had failed not long after takeoff following that massive oil leak and this aircraft didn’t have a good reputation for single engined flying. An Airwork Viking   The Nene powered Viking   The BEA Viking that survived a bomb explosion intended to bring the aircraft down   Airwork employed a number of Vikings that flew as far afield as South Africa   The aftermath of the crash   Air Hostess Beryl Rothwell   Capt Anderson's youngest son, Nicholas James     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Norsk Luftfartsmuseum, BAe, the Daily Sketch, the AAIB, UK Gov, Vickers and Ruth AS.

Whilst we are discussing quaint idioms, many of us trust that old American adage, “If it looks good, it’ll fly good” attributed to both Neil Armstrong and Bill Lear and is something that all pilots understand. There is something about a fine looking aircraft that makes it appear trustworthy and gives one confidence that it will perform well. Sadly, I know of one company, however, who seem to have looked at their aircraft through bottle bottom glasses… or perhaps they never got the memo. The Dunne D5   The Type 184 The Cardington Gasbag   The Shorts S38   The Singapore   The Shorts Empire flying boat   The Sunderland   The COW gun   The Sunderland's internal bomb racks   The Sunderland's rest facilities   The Bombay   The long legged Stirling   The unlikely looking Seamew   Hurel-Dubois Miles 106 Caravan   The Shorts SC 7 Skyvan   The Shorts SD360   The coolest Skyvan ever... Pink!     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Marinha do Brasil, Short Bros of Cardington, the RAF, Shorts, the Library of Congress, SADSM, George Jackman, the Royal Navy, Adrian Pingstone, Tomás Del Coro and those images orphaned or in the Public Domain.

The aircraft was named ‘Flagship District of Columbia’ and was only the 12th Boeing 707 ever made. It was delivered to American Airlines in February 1959 so at the time America was taking its first steps into the void of outer space it was a mere 3 years old. It hadn’t long been out of it’s periodic inspection and with less than 8,000 hours on the airframe N7506A was expected to have a long and productive life ahead… a wish that would be dashed in a few short minutes. The New York skyline   An American Airlines Boeing 707 at LAX   Changes in apparent span and the effects of sideslip on a swept wing when yawed   The 707 rudder control system   Wreckage from American Airlines flight 514   The Calverton crash still smoking   A New York ticker tape parade   The flight recorder trace from the American One's final moments   A reconstruction of the track of Flight One   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Jon Proctor, San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives, the Civil Aeronautics Board and Ted Quackenbush.

The Royal Air Force’s Pilots Flying Logbook is a sturdy publication, cloth bound in blue with gold printing on the cover, on the inside of which are the instructions for use. Para 1, sub para (a) it states that the Book is an official document and is the property of Her Majesty’s Government… well, good luck trying to get this one back! The star of the Top Gun movie   The much admired RAF Phantom QWI badge   The island of Cyprus was famous for its rough red Kokinelli wine   The 20mm SUU23A Vulcan cannon   A typical Cypriot meze   Mrs A moving yet again   Receiving my 1000hrs Phantom badge       The F4 rear office   The arrival of son No1   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Gage Skidmore, Google Earth, Thomas Fedor and Cyprus Tourism.

Last week we chatted about historic incidents that led to aircraft upsets. This week we talk to a newly qualified airline pilot who is undergoing advanced Upset and Recovery Training at a British training school. We also speak to the school's chief pilot and one of the instructors, an ex Mig 29 pilot.   Basem undergoing upset training at BAA in a Grob     One of the BAA's Extras   Basem off to be turned upside down!   Adrian... Basem's ex Mig 29 instructor   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Capt Nick Anderson

With the arrival of jet powered airliners, commercial pilots entered a new world of high altitude flying in large swept wing aircraft at velocities approaching the speed of sound. They were often unprepared for the challenge and before long unexpected and unexplained loss of control events began to worry the world of aviation. These events initially occurred when an aircraft was upset from its normal benign straight and level environment and ended up in a high speed dive, something that was rare in the earlier days of straight winged, piston powered airliners. Hence, they became known as Jet Upsets. Coffin Corner!   Upsets involve extreme attitudes   Less than perfect cockpit design often contributes to upsets   A Pan Am B707       China Airlines A300   The tragic result of the China Airlines upset   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Boeing Company, Geni, the NTSB/CAB, Guido Allieri and the JTSB.

In the world of Slavic folk tales there are giants in Ukraine but as aviators the ones we are interested are the giants that the fabled aircraft designer Oleg Antonov designed. This is his story. The OKA1 glider   Antonov at the Leningrad Polytechnic   The OKA38 Stork   The An-2   The An-12 Cub   The An-24 Coke   The vast An-22 Cock   The huge An-124 Condor   The flight deck of the An-124   The mighty Mryia, An-225, carrying a Buran project space shuttle   The destruction of a dream, the Mryia was a victim of the Russian invaders who recently attacked Ukraine   Oleg Antonov   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Antonov Design Bureau, the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, the Central Design Bureau for Gliders, Arpingstone, Igor Dvurekov, Dmitriy Pichugin, Toshi Aoki, Yevgeny Pashnin, Vasiliy Kob and Дизайнер: А.Безменов.