Canadian SARTECHs

It is amazing what you can find once you know it exits. I have the full resolution version of the video below. Just for fun I thought I would see if it was on YouTube (isn't everything?). Sure enough it has been there for a while, enjoy.



While I was looking around I also found this one that shows other Canadian Forces air operations, so I threw it in as well.

Wing Suits and Gliders

While to some (myself included) the wing suit seems a bit crazy, and I would never try it myself I can recognize the skill of others and the joy they obviously get from it. Here are some particularly well done videos.

Women of CVN 76 USS Ronald Reagan

Considering this is the internet it might not be what you think. Kind of campy and over the top, but at least they're having fun.

Water Bomber in Malibu

Picked this up off the AVWeb page, stuck it here so I don't loose the link. That is some crazy low flying!



And here is some footage of scooping, I don't know if they are the same aircraft, or even working the same fire.

Speaking of Low Passes

Of course my Cherokee can't compete with this low pass:



A-10 Almost Takes Out Cameraman - video powered by Metacafe

or this one (Warning, strong language).

Flight Patterns

A very interesting way to render flight data.

Data from the U.S. Federal aviation administration is used to create animations of flight traffic patterns and density.

More images are available at Aaron Koblin's web site. He also has one of the most interesting home pages I've seen in some time.

Big Sky Theory

Quite often the immense volume of the sky keeps us safe. Every so often it fails and tragedy happens. Sometimes its just time to call it a day.

Winding up the Rubber Band

AVweb was kind enough to post this video to YouTube:



It's from 94 so it has been around the web for a while but it is nice that someone found it so we can all look at it again, or for the first time if that's the case. Wikipeadia has a good article on spins and spin recovery as well as another spin video link.

Both these videos have the airplane spinning to the left. A left hand or anticlockwise rotation is common because, even though fixed wing trainers are usually certified for spin recovery they often have design elements which make them resistant to spinning, gyroscopic precession of the rotating propeller, as the nose pitches down, will tend to yaw the plane to the left, assisting a spin in that direction. Stalling with high propeller RPM may be enough to cause a spin without any other encouraging input, and carrying high RPM through the incipient phase can cause the spin to flatten. I have done the occasional spin to the right, other than being slightly more difficult to enter than a left spin, I haven't noticed any significant difference in the spins themselves or the recovery, except for one time.

After a hiatus in my flying I thought it prudent to take some extended recurrent training. So I shopped around till I found a school with an instructor that impressed me with his plan to bring me up to speed. Using a Cherokee 140 over several days we worked our way through the standard PPL syllabus, smoothing out the rough spots as we went. Once done he asked me if I wanted to do some spins, they weren't required, but why not! So we climbed up and between us did 4 or 5 spins, all to the left. It was a real hoot and very good revision. I stabilized in a climb after the last one he looked at his watch and announced that we were getting near the end of our time block but we might have time for one more if I was up to it. Of course I was! He said I could try one to the right if I wanted, so standard entry technique, right rudder and smart as you please we were spinning to the right with a nice stable rotation. He called for recovery, and I applied full left rudder. To my surprise the rotation to the right accelerated. He must have been expecting it because simultaneously his arms left the standard instructor position (crossed on his chest) and flew to the yoke. I beat him though and got the nose down, the rotation stopped and recovery was completed without any additional excitement. When we got down my instructor walked up to the dispatcher (who was working on his commercial at the time) and said "You're right, spins to the right in that plane do...". Well it was a surprise to me, but good training and a confidence booster for all that.

So if you're a pilot, or student pilot, have you done spin training? What is your left right ratio, and have you encountered any quirky spin behaviour?

Live footage - ALG

I found this footage amazing when I first saw it back in 1999, eight years later landing technology has improved but I think this is still amazing. Warning there is some strong language at the end.

Live footage