airplanes

Chris Knight's avatar

This is something I wish Dad were still here to tell about it too.  As much as he disdained computers, he would no doubt find this to be very cool…

Two days ago a Beechcraft King Air became the very first aircraft to deploy an “autoland” system after the pilot became incapacitated.  It happened in Colorado.  The Garmin Autoland that had been installed on the plane kicked in and proceeded to automatically guide the aircraft down to a safe touchdown at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.  After it came to a halt, emergency crew arrived and took care of the pilot, who is reportedly doing fine.
We have entered a new age of air flight, folks.  When this kind of thing gets to be more widely installed, a lot of people are going to be having second thoughts about going up in an aircraft.  Especially in smaller planes that may
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Chris Knight's avatar

Today is the 120th anniversary of the first powered air flight, by the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk on the  Outer Banks of North Carolina.

In May of 2017, not long after coming back east after nearly a year of traveling across America, I took my dog Tammy on a day trip to the Outer Banks.  I wanted her to be able to say (to other dogs anyway) that she has seen the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.  We drove down to Cape Hatteras and visited the lighthouse, then went back north.  We spent a little while at the Wright Brothers monument, and got our photo taken at the spot where that very first airplane flight took off from:

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Chris Knight's avatar

This is a photo of William Overstreet Jr. of Roanoke, Virginia, taken in recent years:

william overstreet jr., world war ii, roanoke, virginia
Photo Credit: The Roanoke Times

Mr. Overstreet passed away this past Sunday afternoon.  He was 92, and one of the most decorated airmen of World War II.

This is a photo of Bill Overstreet when he served in the Army Air Force during the war:

william overstreet jr, world war ii

And this is the maneuver that forever put Overstreet in the history books:

william overstreet jr, bill overstreet, eiffel tower, paris, france, world war ii, messerschmitt

This dude engaged in a dogfight with a German Messerschmitt Bf 109G over Nazi-occupied Paris.  And Overstreet, flying his P-51C, chased the Messerschmitt by flying through the arches of the Eiffel Tower!!  Overstreet soon after blasted the Nazi plane out of the sky.  It was a move that sent the morale of the French freedom fighters soaring.

Now… that is seriously hardcore.

Overstreet, a pilot in the357th squadron, was the recipient of hundreds of medals during ...

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Chris Knight's avatar
Mysterious bar code on the ground, United States, Cold War, surveillance aircraft, spy satellites
The “bar code” at Walker Field, Maryland

Adjacent to the runway of a Navy airfield in Maryland is a paved rectangle.  And within that area are a series of quadrilaterals painted bright white, in pairs and ascending in size.

By itself its existence would be a mystery, or at least a curiosity.  Except that it is one of dozens to be known throughout the United States, with most of those found near military bases and other restricted facilities.  Some remote locations have entire arrays of the “bar codes” stretching for miles toward the horizon.

So what are these test pattern-ish arrangements?  Based on available evidence, they seem to have been put in place by the government during the first few decades of the Cold War.  With tensions high between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the advent of high-altitude aircraft reconnaissance – and then “spy” satellites – became an important ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

How perfectly fitting, that on the same day that Felix Baumgartner took his 24-mile high skydive, becoming the first person to break the sound barrier in freefall with only a high-tech suit for protection…

…retired Air Force Brigadier General Charles “Chuck” Yeager celebrated the 65th anniversary of the very first supersonic flight – which Yeager accomplished in the X-1 – by flying faster than sound again at the age of 89.

There ain’t enough accomplishments of daring these days, it sadly seems. Reading stuff like this, gives me great hope....

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Chris Knight's avatar

That is the most awesome aircraft in history, and infinitely cooler than the Stealth Bomber.

(Okay, the SR-71 Blackbird will always be the greatest aircraft ever, but this is at least a very close second.)

I’m not sure if this is one person’s private aircraft or something official with Popcorn Sutton’s Tennessee White Whiskey, but it’s got “93 Proof” printed on the fuselage and flies high and fast! ‘Course it’s been said that Popcorn’s likker would make you fly high and fast without a plane, but anyhoo…

I wonder if we’ll ever see a NASCAR driver sponsored by Popcorn Sutton’s moonshine. Now that would be a beast of a hot-looking car!...

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Chris Knight's avatar

This clip begins with that scene from Top Gun where Tom Cruise buzzes the control tower. And it then proceeds to assault your senses (and possibly good sense) with ten low-altitude flybys that Hollywood probably wouldn’t dare do without ‘spensive computer graphics. But these are real. And #3 on this list had me literally grabbing at my own head, it’s so scary! That dude on the ground has some brass ones…

Okay, #3 is maybe all the more amazing for me ‘cuz the pilot is flying upside-down. And I once saw a plane crash at an air show. It was in 1996 here in Rockingham County, and the dude in the cockpit was doing a low-altitude maneuver upside-down over the runway. It happened right in front of where we were sitting and it looked horrific. But he got out with just a few scratches and I heard that ...

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