Raw Video Of Aborted Takeoff In Angola

The video above was taken on September 26 in Cabinda, Angola as the pilots of an Ilyushin Il-18 attempt to abort a takeoff run and suffer as subsequent brake fire and eventual runway excursion beyond the departure end. Of course, it's 2008 so all of the digital cameras and camera phones come out instantly from the pockets of all the ground crew.

[LiveLeak]

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Dead Stick Takeoff AND Landing

This pilot shows off his gliding skills (and big cojones) by pushing his powered aircraft off a 1,500 foot high cliff without starting the engine then sailing 2 miles down to a sand bar in a canyon somewhere. You can clearly see one propeller blade stationary during the flight before he starts the engine up after landing. Any guess where this might have taken place?

[Airline Pilot Central]

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Sweet JSF Animation

While BF-1, the first production F-35B, has been relegated to strictly conventional flight to date, this super sweet animation from Stephen Trimble's blog does an amazing job highlighting the aircraft's future short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) capabilities. Combining the awesome footage with the cool soundtrack and this short vid clip got me all pumped up to see this JSF variant in action.

[The DEW Line]

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Passenger Shows His Dissatisfaction By Throwing Foot Powder

Now here's a guy taking matters into his own hands. A 42-year-old man was arrested at Boston Logan Airport on Monday for allegedly flinging foot powder inside the aircraft cabin of his US Airways flight. Reportedly upset after a late arrival from Las Vegas, the flight's captain told Massachusetts state police the man started throwing the white powder around and shouting, "This is what your airline gets for treating me bad." Police took the man (and his 7 oz bottle of Dr. Scholl's Foot Powder) in to custody and charged him with interfering with aircraft operation, disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct on a public conveyance. I guess he showed them.

[Today In The Sky]

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Ultra Slo-Mo Saturn V Launch

This is what 7,648,000 lbf of thrust looks like in super slow motion. Undoubtedly, the Saturn V rocket was one of the most amazing feats of engineering in American history. Pretty cool video to watch (if you've got 8 minutes).

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Germans Fly UAVs With $30 Computer Joystick

I was catching up on one of my favorite photoblogs, The Big Picture, yesterday when I came across the photo above. In a photopost on International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) actions in Afghanistan, they show the picture of German Federal Armed Forces piloting a Luna X UAV from a container on their base in Northern Afghanistan. What really caught my attention was what the pilot was using to control the UAV. Instead of the complex all-contained units I'm used to seeing for Predator flying, these guys seem to be using just a simple Logitech Extreme 3D Pro computer joystick. Now that's some frugal war fighting.



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Chinese Space Humor

SATIRE WARNING: The following is a test of your sense of humor (or lack thereof)!

In light of China's recent successful manned mission and spacewalk, why not enjoy a little humorous take on the Chinese Space Program from folks over at The Onion?

Thanks, Russ.

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737 Gear-Up In Russia

© NTV Russia

The 144 people on board this KD-Avia Boeing 737-300 will have a nice story to tell after their flight landed in Kaliningrad late last night with the landing gear retracted. The flight crew aborted an earlier attempt at landing on their flight from Barcelona to Kaliningrad due to a reported "technical problem". After going around, the pilots decided to make the landing with the undercarriage stowed. Obviously, the aircraft sustained considerable damage but none of the passengers or crewmembers were injured.

© Rossiya Telekanal

[Flight Global]

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TSA Unveils Pilot Programs...For Pilots

No matter what your feelings are on whether or not flight deck crew members should have to be screened before they get to their aircraft, the TSA is still going to require it. So just get used to it. At least the TSA is now starting to come around with some innovative new approaches to getting pilots through the security checkpoints quickly and with little hassle. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) is teaming up with the TSA for a pilot screening program for pilots called CrewPass at Baltimore Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport (BWI), Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) and Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE) in South Carolina. CrewPass is a dedicated line at the checkpoint for flight deck crewmembers with a kiosk where pilots enter their badge number. The kiosk then displays the pilot's photo (as seen below) which a TSA agent can use to match with the face of the pilot trying to pass.


Another system being used at BWI was developed by Southwest Airlines and uses special lane for pilots only as well but introduces biometrics to the equation. The pilots present a "clear key", which looks like a USB drive with a fingerprint scanner on it. After inserting the device and scanning their fingerprint, the pilot's photo is displayed for matching like in the device mentioned earlier for screener comparison. High tech, yet simple. While I'm sure the debate on whether or not pilots need to be checked will continue forever, at least in the mean time it's getting a little easier for pilots to avoid the pain and agony of the long and invasive checkpoint procedures.


[Evolution of Security]

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