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It always seems weird to me to see a coast guard aircraft flying around over Sacramento of all places. That plane comes in low right over my house every afternoon, shaking the shit out of everything. Fun to watch though.Quote:
Originally Posted by snapt
Yah I could never figure it out until I met a pilot and he said it's so they can get to Tahoe and assist with SAR, drop a liferaft etc and still get over to the ocean quickly.Quote:
Originally Posted by G
I used to get buzzed by fighters in Eastern Sierra canyons all the time, never really figured out where those planes came from, Fallon or Nellis? Maybe something to do with the Naval depot or in coordination with the Marine base. Crazy how easily they can sneak up on you!
i love this thread, something so cool about being in the right spot at the right time to witness a random fly-by.
got to see some F18's at close range while i was fishing the gulf stream off the outer banks, nc two summers ago.
When the US outlawed a number of commercial jets for noise pollution, the airlines were giving them away and they became the gun runner's wings du jour in other parts of the world. I had a friend who was a pilot running guns in Africa. Between the time he took off and would land, there was a regime change in Uganda and he was forced down because they had negotiated airspace with the former leader. Total of three jets ( I think they were MD 80s or 727s) were set down by fighter jet escort. My friend said they killed two other pilots on the tarmac bullet to the head style. He was held in prison for 20 days before his wife bribed him out.Quote:
Originally Posted by BmillsSkier
Normally the loadmaster (my old job, I was an LM on C-17s) is the eyes for the pilots - stand in the back of the aircraft and open up either the ramp/cargo door or one of the paratrooper drop doors on either side of the aicraft, and talk over the intercom system for which direction to turn. I usually opened the ramp, I'm guessing the aircraft's right troop door was used in the youtube vid, and you'd tell the pilots "tail to one" or "tail to four" - the aircraft's engines are numbered one to four from left to right so going with the engine references avoids confusion on whose left we're talking about. When it was time to stop I'd give a heads-up call followed by the countdown - "standby...five, four, three, two, one, STOP." If you just gave the stop right away they'd do it but it could result in a bit of a wheelie for the jet, and with the back door open you could fall out, which is embarrassing at the very least...Quote:
Originally Posted by Tye 1on
I didn't do airshow demos and since this was done on the runway (with lots of nice markings on it), it's possible the pilots in the vid used the runway centerline markings for alignment - pretty easy to follow and since you're on the runway nothing you can back into, right? But the ability to back the jet up was pretty useful, did it all the time, even parallel parked the aircraft (!) at Kuwait City International since the cargo ramp had some...interesting..parking. Especially when they'd park C-5s on either side of you and they'd break, which C-5s did, a lot...
As for getting up and going, the jet has a published ability to get airborne at max gross takeoff weight (585,000 lbs) with a 3,000ft strip. At lower payloads, especially empty, you could halve that depending on elevation and outside temperature. Pretty impressive!
Where I live forest fires are a pretty common occurrence. You never get a sense of how huge the planes are till the fly right overhead. Rattles your bones.
http://i.imgur.com/joCv3Ii.jpg
(bonus points if anyone can name the location)
Not too many places you can see Lockheed Electras fly anymore
[uselessanecdote]When I was fighting fire in Alaska during the 80s, the national fire center in Boise contracted an Electra during the summer to fly people around to high fire activity locations. We called the people that it brought up to AK Electralites.[/uselessanecdote]Quote:
Originally Posted by Jumper Bones
Wildfire was a great way to see classic aircraft. When I first started there was at least one B-17 still on retardant contract. C-119Js blew my mind skipping down ridges into valleys in SoCal in the 70s. There was a KC-97 dropping around mud in the 80s, and the PB4Ys were pretty awesome. Catalinas, S-2s, CL-215s... Radial engines give me wood. I took this picture in the mid-80s in AK:
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps08ba8e7c.jpg
I loved the Electras. They used to fly from John Wayne to SLT in the 70s. The tickets were $19!Quote:
Originally Posted by Jumper Bones
Coolest thing about them was a round seating setup for like ten people in the tail for socializing.
And they were soooo quiet inside.
Ugh. That sounds awful. There's a whole bizarre world of aviation out there that seems very interesting to read about but would be terrifying to experience in person.Quote:
Originally Posted by splat
In the Early '90's, when I was a kid, my house in N VT got buzzed by the predecessor of the C-17 one Saturday morning. Heard a strange whistling noise and all of the sudden this comes up over the low rise hill a 1/4 mile in front of the house. No more than 150 of the deck.
http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviatio.../7/0300713.jpg
Shook the whole house. It headed straight at the mountainside 5 miles away and simply popped up and over it and was gone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-141_Starlifter
Where's the back-up beeper alarm for that C-17?
~3000' of runway to get that mass airborne is very impressive.
Considering some buds and I used all 6000 ft of the runway in Santa Fe to get a Piper Cherokee up to three feet off the deck at the end of it one hot summer day, I'd say so. Took one of us on the flaps and another flying to keep from hitting the desert.Quote:
Originally Posted by From_the_NEK
I think we lacked the thrust....:)
Haha. Yup. As a former C-5 load, I can attest to that. Loved my plane, but it was kind of the Land Rover of the aviation world (Re: unbelievably capable, but total piece of crap). I remember watching you goons backing up no problem, and I gotta admit...I was a bit jealous of that feature.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jumper Bones
Back to the topic at hand, I ended up finishing my enlistment, but before I did, I was seriously considering transferring to a C-130 unit. Freaking amazing plane. You would not believe the maneuverability of those things in the sky. I'm sure somebody here can think of a good skiing analogy for them that can explain it to the fine folks here better than I can.
I enjoyed some pretty cool rides on C-17's back and forth from DGAR. I real cool reserve unit out of Hawaii would be by the island every so often and they always had a cooler full of good beer we could never get in the ships store. I was pretty amazed at how quickly the aircraft got off the treadmill and how fast the thing climbed. Watched many cool aircraft over the years between Guam and other places I was anchored. Pretty cool watching B1's and B2's with NVG's.
Never got to see a spooky/spectre. By far the most badass.
I always like watching the B-52s land at Anderson from my office. We get lots of flybys from other aircraft there too.
http://adamcu.files.wordpress.com/20...1-acu_3313.jpg
Diego Garcia and Guam. Ahh, the memories of Pacific Channel missions...
I got a few rides in the C-130 down on the ice. I remember the pilots always being pretty cool guys/gals.
http://images2.snapfish.com/23232323...%3B32%3Cnu0mrj
It is pretty much a daily thing here. Their approach is right over a main rd here. The flybys I don`t like seeing are the Coastie helicopters. We see them screaming out towards the gulf, while we are out in the boat. Just gives you a bad feeling. Glad they are here though.Quote:
Originally Posted by present tense
Walking out on the hot tarmac, getting pummled by hot exhaust and prop blast from a C-130 was an amazing experience during my first airborne jump. The noise, smells, winds, heat.
My father used to fly them all over the pacific when he was in the Navy so it was cool to finally ride in one, though I didn't land with it.
Edwards or China Lake...Quote:
Originally Posted by snapt
Wishin I had a pic of the drones that were following us around the edges of area 51 when we were skiing there. I've never felt comfortable mentioning it before. Pics did a magic disappearing act. That was ten years ago. Didn't even dream then that drones would become commonplace like they are now.
I'm sure it was just a weather balloon.
Nope, swamp gas.
All kinds of wondrous stuff flies around the Nellis ranges, and we've been flying Predator UAVs for, what...15 years? Since the Bosnia stuff at least.
Yeah, they're unreal. I remember hearing about this years ago and just found a vid. Here's a C-130 performing unarrested carrier landings and unassisted carrier takeoffs:Quote:
Originally Posted by AustinFromSA
The weather channel had a series not to long ago about this outfit that was based up in Hay River, Northwest Territories. They use the Lockheed L-188 Electra. . It was called "Ice Pilots NWT"Quote:
Originally Posted by Jumper Bones
Attachment 135122
When I lived in Southwest Virginia on a wildlife management area, my house/shop was in the flight path of the SAC. We had probably 6-8 B-52's over the house every day, as well as a bunch of fighters and other light bombers. Had the wreckage of an FB-111 on the top of one of the mountains in front of the house. Biggest piece was about the size of a desk.
Had a lake on the top of one of the mountains the pilots used for practice bombing runs. Was on top of one of the ridges one day and had one come within a few hundred feet. Could smell the fuel after it passed.
The aircraft carrier in that vid was the USS Forrestal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arty50
My neighbor was on the deck with John McCain when the shit hit the fan in '67 and spent six months in a burn unit.
Start at 9:00
I want to ride you.Quote:
Originally Posted by MakersTeleMark
wicked_sick is that near Salmo? Looks like road to Shambhala :-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by wicked_sick
We've seen similar stuff on this board, but this was yesterday. And it's my nephew.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjn8oq6UfwY&sns=fb
It's a C-130 thread, Jong.Quote:
Originally Posted by itsnowjoke
No shit, there is already a separate thread for shit like that
Trolls. You guys need anger management class. You have 6 and 8,000 posts, and what you post is inane bullshit such aircraft type? Get a life, jongs! In case you hadn't noticed, this thread morphed a long time ago. 3 out of five posts above mine have nothing to do with C-130's. C-130's are awesome, but really, props are for boats!
Deep dive into a C-130 variant. Really neat stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks4E8XwxHmw&t=1301s
I think that the most awesome plane that I have ever seen up close is the Lockheed C5 Galaxy. When I was living outside of Frankfurt at the end of the Cold War (1987-1990ish) seeing and hearing those jets close by was an experience. People from all over Hessen who were alive at that time will always remember the roar of the Galaxy.
Austin/Montucky was a Loadmaster on C-5’s in the USAF.Quote:
Originally Posted by schindlerpiste
Sent from my iPad using TGR Forums
Heh-
Loadmaster
I giggled. Your mom's a load master.Quote:
Originally Posted by warthog
That guy's videos are amazing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timberridge
If you're at all an aviation nerd (and have some free time) you need to watch his walk around videos.