Great flying machines and great video go very well together, and that's what you'll see right here (if you're the impatient type, skip the first 20 seconds) - Eurocopter recently unveiled the EC130 T2, a significant update to their popular EC130 helicopter. With a capacity of 1 pilot and up to 7 passengers in the wide cabin, a horsepower upgrade to 952 shp, and extremely quiet operation, the EC130 T2 is perfectly suited to aerial tour operators. That large cabin is also excellent for air ambulance work as well.
Maverick Helicopters has ordered 50 of the EC130 T2, and Eurocopter expects to begin deliveries to customers of the updated helicopter later in 2012. Based on both the look and the performance shown in the video, this is one hot whirlybird!
Screenshot from the video of the Eurocopter EC130 T2 having some fun
The well-seasoned captioner known as 'Tailgear' comes thru with the winning string of words this time around - congrats! And may the power of a tasty bacon sandwich at OSH12 be with you : )
You can find a little more info on this homebuilt Chinese Tri-Motor at this EAA post from a year ago. I didn't see any additional info on the ultimate success of the effort. Hopefully this flying machine(?) has been put on permanent display in the National Chinese Museum of Really Great Attempts That Should Never Be Tried Again (!)
This fresh in-house video from the cool people at Scaled Composites shows a wide range of the unique flying machines they've built over the years... and it also gives you a good feel for the excellent camaraderie that the people working there experience.
I know if I was young and working toward my engineering degree (like I should have been) I'd be doing everything I could to get my foot in the door! What could be better than loving the experience of being part of the team that designs and builds some of the most fascinating aircraft in the world?
Screenshot from the video that shows the past and the future at Scaled Composites
I think there are two kinds of artsy when it comes to videos... one that seeks to let you know how cool the artist is, and the other leaves the artist's ego out of it and is genuinely a cool piece of work. This HD stop-motion and time lapse 'video' about hot air ballooning is genuinely cool. It was built up out of more than 3,500 HD still images by Jan Fröjdman from Finland. It's pretty long at 6:30, but it so interestingly captures the unique beauty that ballooning is, that I think it's well worth watching - especially fullscreen.
I've only had three balloon rides in my life (two of them in the last 15 months) but each one was extremely memorable. It's such a pure and peaceful form of flying - I very highly recommend it. I hope this video encourages anyone who's never flown via hot air to seek an opportunity out this year.
Screenshot from the ballooning video - playing the violin!
Incredible detail on this T-33 by model master Graeme Mears (photo: facebook)
Quite a while back I showed you the unbelievable story of a privately owned F-16, which of course was really a hyper-realistic RC model built by Graeme Mears from Canada. Then I shared a progress report on a T-33 project he was working on for the Jet World Masters event back in July of 2011. Well here we are now in 2012 and as it turns out, the T-33 has yet to make its first flight... but that's now planned for late February of early March down in Lakeland Florida in conjunction with the Florida Jets event taking place March 1-4. It's definitely an exciting time in the life of this project!
There are a lot of stunning projects like this being built all over the world, but usually we don't know much about them til they surface at an event. However, Graeme has been updating his facebook page with photos along the way giving us a chance to see the mind-boggling details that make a model like this look so incredibly real. I highly recommend you click that link and check out the collection of images.
It's hard sometimes to believe that there are people with the skills and patience to do this kind of work... but to realize that these models fly too just blows the mind. According to Graeme's FB page, highly experienced RC pilot Ali Machinchy will be doing the test flights.
Lastly, this Thunderbirds paint scheme replicates a full scale T-33 (see a flickr pic here) but it's important to know that while there have been a handful of private T-33's painted like this, the Thunderbirds never actually used them for demonstrations.
Hopefully there will be a slick video of the T-33 in flight to post here before long : )
Graeme Mears with the RC T-33 giving some perspective to its size (photo: facebook)
Super Bowl XLVI was a money droppin' party for a lot of jet-setters, and this video shows the track of those jets (and yeah, probably some prop jobs too) both into and then out of Indianapolis on Sunday February 5, 2012. It's a pretty stunning amount of traffic that I'm sure kept the controllers on their toes. It's another interesting aspect of the success story for the city of Indianapolis... and it's probably the closest the city will ever get to being Oshkosh : )
I was reminiscing over the weekend about some rather amazing experiences I had when I 20 years old and younger... I have three different historic Tri-Motor aircraft that I was able to travel cross country in... and two of them I actually have extended hours of dual received in my logbooks! First it was N414H, the 1929 Ford Tri-Motor that was owned by Chuck LeMaster in Kansas back in the 70's. Then it was N7501V, one of only two Bushmaster 2000's (modernized Ford Tri-Motors from the 60's), owned by Chuck in the late 70's. And then in 1981, I made the trip from Illinois to Sun-n-Fun and back in the world's only Stinson Model A Tri-Motor (N15165) rebuilt and owned at the time by Gene Coppock. Those were some incredible experiences! (more details on all that another day)
Well, the point here is that I figured we should have a Caption Contest that pays tribute to the good ole tri-motor! And the best part is that the winner will snag a bacon sandwich at OSH12!
So, you've got til Wednesday evening at 9pm EST to submit your clever/funny/cool captions. Then, I’ll pick the best 5 and put ’em in a poll for everyone to vote on for all day Thursday and Friday so we can find the winner.
The Rules:
1) Max of 3 submissions per person
2) Submissions go in the 'comments' area
3) Game ends Wednesday at 9pm EST
4) Keep it clean!
Then, anyone can cast their vote starting Thursday morning and running thru til 9pm EST Friday. The winner will be posted Saturday morning 2-25-12. Go ahead, give it a tri : )
My friend Gary (youtuber sr71afan) makes some of the coolest simplified RC foam flyers and fun little videos to go with them. By going with hyperlightweight foam and flying either indoors or in still outside air, he experiences a purified beauty of flight that really clicks with me... I hope it clicks with you too.
This one is a very conventional looking taildragger with such a lightweight wing structure that the wings sag on the ground and have loads of dihedral in the air. The takeoff roll from a standing start looks to be under two feet and the overall slow flying is very relaxing to watch. And don't be impatient and give up after 30 seconds... if you do you'll miss the flight thru the lean-to porch at :50 (after the spectators clear a path), and even more important, you'll miss his sweet formation flight with a full scale aircraft passing overhead at 2:45. It's more of the creative RC flying that makes Gary's videos so much fun to watch. His hat-mounted video cam is also a big part of what makes his videos different. As long as he's watching the airplane, we are too. Plus, that's why we get some passes that go by so close to the camera.
I've just created a new AirPigz category labeled sr71afan so you can easily check out the other videos from Gary, some of which are him flying and some are other cool flyers. Enjoy!
Here's a recent showreel video from Virgin Galactic with some stellar views of both WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo in flight. Impressive stuff... and fun to watch : )
Video screenshot of SpaceShipTwo looking fabulous in a glide test
The huge 4-engine, 130' wingspan Handley Page H.P.42 airliner introduced in 1931
(click pic for hi-res)
My self-directed aviation education as a kid was built around books that my dad had, and while I learned about airliners of the late 20's and very early 30's like the Ford Trimotor and the Boeing 80A, I never knew anything about the Handley Page H.P.42 and H.P.45. I suppose the fact that it was operated by Imperial Airways on European, Indian, and South African routes might have had something to do with that. While I learned about lots of foreign military aircraft, my early airliner exposure was mostly United States oriented.
So, the H.P.42, what an amazing beast! With four Bristol Jupiter engines making 490hp (550hp on the H.P.45) and wingspan on the top wing of 130 feet, this was one big airplane! Big enough to actually have two passenger cabins, one forward of the wings and one aft... with the ability, depending on configuration, of carrying 38 passengers and a crew of 4. Pretty amazing given the time period, and the relatively low overall horsepower.
The one big trade-off that these airplanes had was that they were darn slow. With a cruise speed of just 95 to 100 mph, you'd better hope you didn't have a very strong headwind! Eight of the big birds were built, (four H.P.42 and four H.P.45), and while none survive today, they served in an airliner capacity for about 9 years, during which time no lives were lost - quite an impressive record for the 1930's.
Aviation history is full of fascinating aircraft that represent a tremendous accomplish for their day, and the Handley Page H.P.42 and H.P.45 were pretty amazing flying machines. Interestingly, there was a project seeking to build an authentic replica of the aircraft, tho it's hard to tell if it's still in the works these days or not.
Be sure to watch the video below that shows this big bipe in the air!
Saturday, February 25, 2012 at 09:10PM 
Screenshot from the video of the Eurocopter EC130 T2 having some fun
