Lufthansa used to operate a restored JU52 on pleasure flights as well as some commercial routes. Back in the day managed to get a flight from Copenhagen to Hamburg in it. Originally built in 1936, I remember it was quite noisy… Fortunately it landed in Hamburg, as advertised, so the passengers didn’t have to jump out over the airport with a parachute…. Really interesting chat with the flight crew on its history, restoration, including integration of modern avionics for nav and comms, and flying it. Both port and starboard nacelles has a mirror on them (you can see the round one on the starboard side) the crew advised these were for synchronising the props, as the crew could see the centre engine prop in the mirror of both the L/H and R/H engine, and synchronise both outboard engines to the centre engine. Astonishingly simple!
My favourite. Shunted along with 2 Rolls Royce Avons I believe. Little did I know that when I grew up I’d be working with RR Avons all around me. Albeit pumping gas and not intercepting Russians
Dunno if I mentioned it, but among the many amazing things I was able to do while being in the Air Force, was being an exchange cadet for the 1995 Fall Semester at the USAF Academy in Colorado Springs. And part of that was visiting Air Bases all around the US. The most memorable one was Edwards AB in California. That’s the base where they shot the Chuck Yeager portion of the movie « The Right Stuff », in the middle of the Mojave desert, not far from LA (visiting Top Gun in NAS Miramar in San Diego was pretty awesome too…). In Edwards, in 1995, they had the Test Pilot School and Wing. So you could see some pretty interesting birds from very close. Some painted white and red, as «test beds». Like this big Phantom Mama ! Got to backseat in one of the very first F-16s (it was already old back then…). A very cool flight above the big runways drawn in the salted flats for the first astronauts to fly down to when testing the X-15. Or Yeager to land the X-1 before that… Got to see a very rare (unique?) two seater version of the fugly A-10, left to rot in the sun. Standing next to the mighty SR-71 is something. Huge airframe! That apron was about 200 yards from one of the runways threshold, where we got to experience another Blackbird taxy (leaking kerosene all over the taxiway, as structure when cold is not sealed to allow optimal thermal expansion above Mach 2.0…) and take-off, full burners on. God I thought I was going to lose my teeth on that one. And finally, got to fly in a KC-135 tanker mission where the crew told us during the brief that we may see UFOs flying close that day. Didn’t understand the joke until I saw that space ship come in to suck the tanker empty in one go. That was a very rare sight in 1995. They even let me take (many!) pictures… Now what are you younger lads waiting to join and become an Airman?!
So here’s another nice memory I have about this trip to Edwards… To fly safely and efficiently on a fighter jet, you need to be equipped: helmet, anti-g suit, Mae West, etc. To do it’s job properly, this equipment needs to be perfectly physiologically adapted to your body (size and shape) and technically adapted to the airframe your flying. These equipments are extremely costly and fragile, so when you are not flying, they are stored in specific climate controlled locker rooms. And in the USAF, they have dedicated tech airmen (NCOs) who take care of them for the flyers (we don’t get that level of luxury in the French Air Force, too costly in terms of HR… so each aircrew takes care of their own flying gear. Woe to you, literally, if you don’t keep it clean and in good working order…). So here’s what the Test Wing aircrew gear locker room looked like in 1995, in Edwards. You may notice at the back, a separate room, where we were instructed to settle down to get ready before each flight. Room had a « VIP » sign on the door, which we found funny. Until we checked the names on the 4 lockers in there. One had « Brig. Gen Chuck E. Yeager » on it. I remember going « Nah, they’re messing with us… » Until one of us opened it and everything was in there, with his name tags and all. And he was scheduled in flight the next afternoon. The jet he was scheduled to fly on was already lined up on the VIP section of the Test Wing’s parking. With a permanent painted red carpet! So much respect for this incredible pilot. I couldn’t resist walking down the red carpet. Didn’t even get in trouble for it.
Back in the day I once travelled on one of these (AN12) which entered service in the early 60's I think....pressurised cockpit and tail position, hold unpressurised IIRC, just a few seats between the fwd pressure bulkhead and cockpit rear wall. Pre ergonomics I think, the flight crew were very busy...
Where was that picture taken? I saw many of these An-xx cargo birds in various places all around Africa, in various states of preservation… Still today, you can see many scavenged wrecks on the sides of African international airports. Like for a ship, I always find it tragic to see an aircraft left roting somewhere…
The image was off the inter web, as I don't have a picture of the one I enjoyed. It was several years ago and at the time they were being retired. It was before smart phones and no photos allowed airside.
The Rafale is a beautiful and extremely capable aircraft. Mk5 (we call it standard F5) production has been launched and should be in service around 2030. Incredible weapons system… Flying these is extremely easy (once your internal clock is used to how fast it flies), but with regards to the weapons systems, the human (pilot) brain is clearly becoming the limiting factor… It’s all about how fast you can learn. The days when they would launch rookies into the fight with only 10 hours on the Spitfire are long gone… Is the second pic one of a Pitts? It’s the only biplane I know of that can do crazy aerobatics.
It is a Pitts didnt mean to add hat one Old man poor eyesight thought it was another Rafaele shot. Here is another couple of it. to enhance its ability it actualy has a jet engine strapped to iy
I remember being on one of those 2 floor Jumbo's departing Hong Kong in the 1990's during a serious storm. We had the first 2 seats on the upper floor and the pilots left the door open so we could see into the cockpit and the cool nighttime view! It was amazing, it seemed like they had a thousand gauges and clocks lit up, we hammered down the runway, heavy on the throttle, steep climb them KA-BAM!!! We were struck by lightening on the climb... the entire plane blacked out, including all the pilots guages! complete black out for about 5 seconds... then luckily it all light up, and we could see the 2 pilots looking at other and one said "THANK CHRIST FOR THAT!!!". Oh the good old days...
I got this picture of a Tupolev TU-134. I managed this picture before being told harshly not to take pictures ! I remember the toilet had wooden seat and you could stand up and look out of the perspex bubble in the compartment ceiling. The amount of drinking that went on during the flight was unreal !
