tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6244999628674918029.post4352816406096057520..comments2024-03-29T04:54:50.435-05:00Comments on Bayou Renaissance Man: It's nice to see this behemoth in the air againPeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10595089829300831372noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6244999628674918029.post-85394156618914822302017-11-10T04:20:42.411-06:002017-11-10T04:20:42.411-06:00Head on it looks like a baby seal with giant bat w...Head on it looks like a baby seal with giant bat wings!Antibubbahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10194983440707702769noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6244999628674918029.post-65383478047434079102017-11-09T14:18:33.619-06:002017-11-09T14:18:33.619-06:00Just watched your earlier post video of the airsho...Just watched your earlier post video of the airshow. What came to mind was the thought: please don't pull a B-52 Fairchild Follies routine. Whenever I see a very large aircraft doing low altitude maneuvers I am reminded of that display of incompetence.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00722792638246578812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6244999628674918029.post-37610835509792292362017-11-09T05:50:56.491-06:002017-11-09T05:50:56.491-06:00I was standing a Quarterdeck watch the first time ...I was standing a Quarterdeck watch the first time I saw a C-5A. The largest AC to land that day at NAS NorVA was a C-141. Most of the time the largest I saw was a USCG C-123. In comparison to the other traffic, the C-5 was an improbability.Quartermasternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6244999628674918029.post-69203854427352437822017-11-09T05:02:49.744-06:002017-11-09T05:02:49.744-06:00@Larry: If South African forces had shot down the...@Larry: If South African forces had shot down the first An-22 of the evening's flights, the others would have been screwed. There's no other airport within several hundred miles where they could safely divert, and at the end of a long flight from the Soviet Union or Cuba, they'd have been low on fuel. With their rough field capabilities, they might have tried to land at a minor airport in Angola, but I doubt they'd have had charts to find them - and in third world Africa, there were (and mostly still are) few, if any, aids to navigation to help them find them. Beacons? Well, yes, airports are supposed to have them. It says so in the book. However, African ants, termites and sundry other creepy-crawlies often make sure that they don't work, even if they're there!<br /><br />I suspect that if one plane had been shot down early one evening, all the others coming in that night would have been in serious trouble. Only those far enough away to turn around and go back, or (if flying south from Europe) find a diversion field in a friendly country big enough and well-equipped enough to handle such a big plane, would have survived.Peterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10595089829300831372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6244999628674918029.post-66321921058828288792017-11-09T01:58:37.909-06:002017-11-09T01:58:37.909-06:00Amazing...simply amazing!...
Dunno just what it i...Amazing...simply amazing!...<br /><br />Dunno just what it is about watching really, <i>really</i> big aircraft taking off and/or landing, or simply passing along overhead at relatively-low altitude (so you can see a lot of detail...), but it's always fascinating. I worked on-contract for a German company, years ago, in a small town called Kelsterbach, which is very close to Frankfurt Flughaven, the big airport adjacent to Frankfurt am Main, and daily walked to work from the S-Bahn train-stop to work under the main approach to the primary West-to-East arrivals runway - and every day that the weather was clear that summer (which it was quite a lot), and I had the time, I would stop and stand as near to the airport boundary as the footpath allowed, and watch the near-continuous stream (Frankfurt Flughaven is a <i>very</i> busy airport, especially in the summertime!) of big (often-international) commercial planes coming in - the Boeing 747s and the big Airbus birds were especially impressive...<br /><br />And that Antonov is, of course, substantially-larger than any of the planes I saw back then.<br /><br />You watch that plane going down the runway towards take-off, and you somewhat begin to wonder: Will it <i>ever</i> lift off? - Then - it just lifts, nearly straight-up at first...and tilts a bit, and soars away...kind-of watching one of the space-shuttle rockets launching (ANOTHER truly-impressive sight!) - only, more-or-less horizontally, and with a lot less smoke and steam and fuss-'n-feathers...<br /><br />Sort of reminds me of the old joke about the Dancing Bear - the most-impressive thing about a plane that size/weight (must be about like that of a 20 - 25 story building, in both respects) is not so much that it flies so very, very <i>well</i> (although it - apparently - does), but just as much that it flies <i>at all!!</i><br /><br />Genuinely impressive -<br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10642272438562364387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6244999628674918029.post-27721577651850460172017-11-09T00:55:11.802-06:002017-11-09T00:55:11.802-06:00I wonder how many aircrew permanently lost a good ...I wonder how many aircrew permanently lost a good part of their hearing flying those and Bears? There's a huge difference between sound-isolating headsets for cockpit crew and active noise-cancelling units. Then again, T-37 'Tweets' had a shriek about them, and A-6 Intruders on approach had a sort-of banshee howl on landing that was near-maddening to my ears when camped near NAS Oceana. I lost a lot high-freq hearing, my brother lost 50% of his hearing working on the flight deck of a carrier, and an uncle lost half of his during helicopter flight school. Sensitive but delicate hearing seems to run in the family. Heck, even with earplugs, several hours in a couple of fights in a C-130 Hercules left my ears ringing for a day afterwards (though a Ted Nugent concert in 1981 left them ringing for 3 days).<br /><br />The RSA got screwed with foreign support in Angola. They shouldn't have asked permission to shoot down the An-122. It's not like they'd have got more than one since they'd have stopped flights as soon as one was lost and the disturbed beehive reaction of security forces would likely have resulted in withdrawal of the recce force (since hiding and waiting for a second shoot-down would likely have been fatal to them). ONCE would've been deniable unless the recce force was caught/killed, and the Soviets would've become a lot more cautious. Twice or more would've been Really Bad.Larryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13296988746956477216noreply@blogger.com