Last one. I promise!
January 30th, 2009
Too many great images are coming out after the Fight 1549. Here’s the latest to tickle my funnybone.
I’ll move on to other things now.
Archive
Archive for January, 2009
Mark your calendars
January 22nd, 2009
Shamelessly lifted from The Huffington Post – written by Jamie Malanowski
Following Tuesday’s Official Swearing-In and Wednesday’s Swearing-In Unplugged, the White House this morning announced the swearing-in schedule for the rest of the month.
January 22nd: Swearing in En Espanol
January 23rd: Swearing In: Dance Party Mix
January 24th: Backwards Day nI gniraewS
January 25th: Swearing In All You Can Eat Breakfast Buffet
January 26th: Swearing In Bat Day: All fans 16 and under will receive an official Swearing In bat courtesy of Ball Park Franks. Ball Park Franks–They Plump When You Cook ‘Em
January 27th: Swearing In Luau
January 28th: Hump Day Swearing In
January 29th: Swearing In Cool Ranch Flavor
January 30th: Freaky Friday Swearing In: president and chief justice change places
Janaury 31st: Swearing In: The Musical
February 1st: Super Bowl Sunday Super Swearing-In“The schedule for the rest of the term will be posted soon,” said Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. “Just give us a little time.”
Leaving on a jet plane
January 20th, 2009
In less than 20 minutes Barak Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. A few hours later, George W Bush, now a common man, flies home to Crawford Texas where he will hopefully retire quietly.
He’ll fly on a VC-25A, the Air Force designation for the specially modified Boeing 747-200B. On the trip, the aircraft will be known as either Air Force 28000 or 29000. The aircraft are only referred to as “Air Force One” when the sitting President is on board. Actually, any airplane that is carrying the President is officially Air Force One.
Mr. President, I’d like to invite you to come up to Brampton for a ride in a Cessna 172R. It would be so cool to make this radio call:
“BRAMPTON UNICOM. AIR FORCE ONE ON FINAL TO RUNWAY 33, HARD STOP”
Museum update
January 18th, 2009
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything about the Toronto Aerospace Museum. I’m spending a lot of time there and some big things are happening – some I can talk about right now and others that will have to wait.
I’m honoured to have been chosen as Chairman of the Wings and Wheels Heritage Festival committee. Wings and Wheels is our largest public event and we’re hard at work planning for the 4th year. Mark your calendars for May 22-24 and come on out to see me at Downsview Park in Toronto.
As the name suggests, the festival is comprised of two main components. Wings covers anything that flies, or used to fly. Military, civilian and general aviation is always well represented. Last year, the Canadian Forces joined us with a CF-18 Hornet, a CP-140A Arcturus, a Tutor trainer in Snowbird colours and a helicopter.
Vintage Wings of Canada brought down their Waco Taperwing and Bombardier brought over a few of their planes.
On the Wheels side, we had a nice collection of custom and classic cars from local clubs as well as some military vehicles and vintage motorcycles. I think this picture really captures the theme of Wings and Wheels. In 2009 we’re really going to try to play up this side more.
Of course, one of the stars is always our Arrow. The only full-size replica of the famous CF-105 fighter. It’s the most spectacular piece in the museum’s collection and is always a crowd pleaser. Everyone is amazed at the size and the quality that shows the thousands of dedicated volunteer hours that went into its construction.
We’ve already got some incredible aircraft coming but I’ll hold off on making any announcements until we’re ready to officially release the news.
There’s other museum news coming that I’m not at liberty to disclose at this time. Suffice it to say that we’ll be moving in new directions that can only enhance our reputation as one of the finest aerospace museums in North America. Stay tuned.
Followup on the US Airways ditching
January 16th, 2009
Did you hear about the plane that ditched in the Hudson River yesterday? Just kidding. The media is on this one non-stop. And so is the ‘Net. “The pilot’s a hero”, “No, he was just doing his job”. Back and forth, back and forth.
Over at Fark, there’s a long thread about the pilot, Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, III. One posting really sums things up:
Sully did a superb job. It’s hard to think of a worse place to lose all your engines. Mountainous terrain at night is bad, but all you will kill on the ground is a moose. NYC? There is no place to go that isn’t going to take out a whole bunch of people.
But to put this in perspective, picture the worst test you took in college. Make it 10 multiple choice questions. Now put the teacher in front of you with a shotgun pointed at your head, who says "you have 180 seconds to get all 10 questions right, and if you get any wrong, any of them, I *will* blow your head clean off, right then. now … go."
Flying pilot is flying. Non flying pilot is grabbing checklists, scanning instruments, shutting off beeps and voices etc. Passengers are starting to scream. No real idea what happened (they almost certainly did not see the birds) and you can’t see the engines from the cockpit.
Speed is bleeding off rapidly. Lower the nose. You have to figure out what of maybe 5 or 6 different scenarios that could have made the symptoms you are seeing (compressor stall? some sort of fuel failure? bad pumps, contaminated fuel? funky french computer programming? bird strike? maybe a real honest to god shoe bomber?).
While you are flying and your buddy is pushing buttons, reading checklists and scanning gauges, your choices are changing. The right answer, which you don’t know yet, is changing because your position and altitude are changing. Turn towards westchester? Stewart? Teterboro? The river? Picture taking that multiple choice test in which you have 180 seconds to get 10 questions right, but the questions themselves change every 5 seconds. Can we even do an air restart at this altitude and airspeed?
Plus, as your non-flying checklist reading compatriot is struggling, you have to start concluding you aren’t getting the engines restarted. Which now is a whole different mindset. Look for something, anything to land on that isn’t a huge building or a bridge. Tell your non-flying buddy to start thinking water landing – a whole different set of checklists. Tell the cabin crew. start shutting stuff off. Oh yeah, has anyone told the controller anything yet? Watch the airspeed, no stalls here. Squawk 7700? Maybe say I love you to your wife and kids, who will at least get to hear you in the voice recorder?
Buddy, whats best glide for this weight, look it up right now. Whats the suggested configuration for a water landing, flaps what 10?, 0 what? What does the wind look like near the surface of the river, we don’t want to hit in a crab, or you get that whole flipping over breaking up thing.
Sh*t there’s a bridge. Stretch the glide just a tad. Christ there’s a lot of sh*t in NYC. Please, mr. ferry boat captain, look up.
Keep it stone cold level. Actually use those rudder pedals for once. Hey, it was good working with you.
Bang.
Jesus H. Christ we are still alive.
The entire flight crew of US Airways 1549 is to be commended. The passengers are to be commended. The ferry captains and emergency responders are to be commended.
Breaking – US Airways A320 off runway at La Guardia into Hudson River
January 15th, 2009
Phoenix rising?
January 14th, 2009
Reports are circulating that Zoom airlines might be revived. Hopefully this news comes true and the distinctive Boeing 767 and 757 aircraft return to the skies.
As readers know, my best friend was a Captain with Zoom and he and his family were devastated when the airline went under last year. Bad management sunk what had been a successful venture – skyrocketing fuel prices and mistimed expansion created a storm that they could not fly through.
I took this picture in 2006 of C-GZMM “City of Halifax” a 767-328/ER as she sat on the tarmac at the FedEx facility at Pearson Airport near Toronto. No idea where she’s being stored but hopefully she’ll be back in the air soon.
They really, really, really like us
January 13th, 2009
Northwest Florida Regional Airport in Fort Walton starts a campaign to convince Canadian travelers to pressure WestJet to begin flying down.
Wewantwestjet.com is a novel approach for an area that is seeing the effects of the travel slowdown. Cute logo too.
I’ll have to check back in a while and see if it worked.
