He was performing a soft field take-off, remaining in the ground effect to build up speed to eventually perform a climb over a 100 foot obstacle at the end of the runway. Have none of you ever been trained as pilots? Hahahahaha......"

(Written on 08/26/2016)(Permalink)

This is a surprise? The Airbus affair in Canada, helped bring a government down. Bribery and corruption follows Airbus around like stink follws skunks.

(Written on 08/08/2016)(Permalink)

It seems as if there might be a bit of politics creeping into ETOPS approval. In the US, the Boeing 787 is given 330 minutes ETOPS approval, and then Europe gives the Airbus A350-900, 370 minute approval. Standard ETOPs has been 120 minutes I believe. Now if my butt is aboard an aircraft and we lose one of our 2 engines, I want that same butt, back on the groung safely ASAP. It seems as if both Europe and The US, are trying to give an advantage to their own product over the competition, with passenger safety coming second. Think about it. 370 minutes is is 6 hours and 10 minutes of sweaty nail biting, praying the second engine is not a duplicate of the first. I hope that each aircraft comes equipped with a seviceable Angel, because they might need it. If only for good luck.

(Written on 05/03/2016)(Permalink)

I wonder what the cost per aircraft lost in the CAS role will be. Seems to me that it would cost much less to lose an A-10 to groundfire than an F-35. Also the survivabilty to ground fire probably, makes the A-10 a more suitable choice. Built like a tank, and a slow mover. The more sofisticated the systems are, generally the more easily damaged. When you try to make something do everything, it usually ends up doing nothing well.

(Written on 11/04/2015)(Permalink)

Does anyone really think that the US actually got rid of the SR-71 without a replacement that was already flying? When the US went into Kuwait,a friend of mine said that the US was going to get their collective asses kicked because the US had sold Iraq all of their weapons. My question at the time was the same. Do you think the US is stupid enough to sell them the very latest weapons, and not have something better? As we know, I was proven right. Whatever they have, it will be ultra secret, and in very black ops.

(Written on 09/25/2015)(Permalink)

Screw noise abatement proceedures. Suddenly you'd be green by making as much noise as possible. Perhaps they can add special noise creating exhausts to the engines to create even more noise.(can't call them mufflers) Sometimes I get really perturbed by green ludites that would be happy to spend a dime to recover a nickle as long as it's tagged as green.

(Written on 09/25/2015)(Permalink)

I don't know that stretch of highway,but from photos, it looks to me as if he landed in a stretch of highway where cars were prohibited from driving.He landed on a chevron painted strip that seems to be painted to delineate between a diverging off ramp and 2 through lanes. Irrespective of potential pilot error here, was the car in a place where it didn'belong? Does a painted strip with such chevrons permit a car from crossing it and exiting? Perhaps the car crossed that strip in front of the plane unexpectedly, just as the plane was at the stall point, just before touchdown at a minimal speed approach.

(Written on 09/25/2015)(Permalink)

You musta been looking in the mirror when you made your post. Think militry solutions rather than political.

(Written on 06/19/2015)(Permalink)

The talking heads on CNN just reported that he only had 100 hours on type. Hard to believe if he's been with Germanwings for 1.5 years as a pilot. The 600+ hours seems much more likely.

(Written on 03/26/2015)(Permalink)

It is my understanding that the dispute between Lafthansa and its pilots at least partially involves the shrinking of the Lufthansa fleet and the increase in the Size of the Germanwings fleet. If so, I would assume that many pilots would be given the opportunity to transfer over to Germanwings at a lower rate of pay. The people transferring over would probably have more hours than the accused co-pilot of that doomed flight. That means that with only 640 hours on type, he was probably going to be furloughed. This pilot had worked apparently for almost 5 years as a FA. He really had the determination and heart to stick to his dreams of flight. Perhaps,the company was about to put him on the beach again. Totally speculative, but the scenario caused by the 2 airlines and their labour disputes with their pilots, might lead to an unbalanced desperate young pilot to make a bad decision. Comments?

(Written on 03/26/2015)(Permalink)