Video: Behind-The-Scenes With The Martin Jetpack's 5,000' Flight

 Here's a really well done behind-the-scenes look at the extremely successful recent Martin Jetpack flight that went all the way to 5,000 feet, and the test of the ballistic recovery parachute system. If you've been sceptical about the potential of this compact VTOL, I think this video will soften you up a bit. Sure, they've still got a long way to go, but I think right now it's a lot more important to realize how far they've come.

 previous post: Mile High Fanny Pack! Martin Jetpack Reaches 5,000 Feet (+Video)

'Name The Plane' - ID MAKE And MODEL For Free Bacon! (6.8.11)

This Name The Plane game has ended - see details below

90 minutes after posting the pic below, 'Race5' correctly ID'd this Focke-Wulf Fw 190 

 The bacon sandwich goes to 'Race5' for correctly identifying the tiny cropped pic below as a Focke-Wulf Fw 190. Great job getting it so quickly. This is the replica Fw 190 that Frasca International owns and it's one of the FlugWerk aircraft from Germany. You can also check out my nice CoolPix of this Fw 190 - she's a beauty!

 More Name The Plane fun will come your way sometime in the future... most likely with little or no notice. However, you can follow @NameThePlane on twitter for a notification, or the AirPigz facebook page. Thanx for playin'. 

 I'm really hoping this Name The Plane challenge doesn't end too quickly! I think I have a pretty nice confuser going on with the cropped pic... but I'm sure someone will be able to ID both MAKE and MODEL to win a bacon sandwhich prize at OSH11. So, if you've got sharp aircraft ID skills, all you gotta do is be the first person to ID both MAKE and MODEL of this aircraft to be the winner!

 Your answers must go in the 'comments' area in this post, and as always, please don't use the shotgun approach to answers - only put up truly educated guesses that you've arrived at via really thinking it thru.

 And I'm not sure if I mentioned, that to win, you have to give me both the MAKE and MODEL! : )

Video: It's Time To Slow Down... And Smell The Rubber Smoke

 GatwickSpotting on youtube puts out some truly wonderful airliner videos, and this is definitely another one of them. It's simple, it's beautiful, it's awesome... and maybe best of all, you can't really smell the rubber.  Enjoy : )

Ride The Farmers 'Zeppelin NT' 3-Engine Airship At Oshkosh 2011

The Farmers Airship (Zeppelin NT) is coming to OSH11!  (photo: Airship Ventures)

(7 pix and a lot of words!)

 Airship Ventures, operators of the Zeppelin NT (NT=New Technology) the semi-rigid helium-filled airship in the San Francisco bay area will be heading east for July to Wittman Regional Airport and Oshkosh 2011!  This means the fabulous Farmers Insurance branded airship, which just happens to be the largest in the world, will be making the skies over Oshkosh look beautiful and nostalgic... and even better, you’ll be able to purchase a 45 minute ride in this fascinating flying machine.

 The rides aren’t cheap, but this once-in-a-lifetime experience will be well worth it… especially since you’ll be getting a relaxing, panoramic view (look at the size of those windows!) of the world’s greatest aviation event! For $399 per person, you and 11 other passengers will experience comfort and fun in the most technologically advanced airship ever made. And it’ll be operating out of the most dynamic airport in the world. Actually, the Farmers Airship will operate out of the ‘airport within an airport’, Pioneer Airport, the nostalgic grass runway and hangars right next to the EAA Air Adventure Museum.

Large gondola with room for 12 pax and some really huge windows! (Airship Ventures)

(click pic to enlarge) 

In my opinion, Oshkosh is always more enjoyable when an airship is in the sky over the event. Whether it’s the Goodyear Blimp, the Virgin Lightship, or the Farmers Airship, there’s just something very satisfying about having a graceful airship overhead. And this year, the 246 foot long Zeppelin NT will be hard to miss since it’s significantly larger than any other airship currently flying.

There’s no way to know how fast the rides will sell out, but I strongly suggest that if you’re interested in this amazing ride opportunity, which will run July 22nd thru the 31st, you should call 650-969-8100 ext. 111 or e-mail reservations@airshipventures.com to get your tickets in advance. I can’t think of a better way to experience Oshkosh this year! Read on for a lot of Zeppelin NT details...

Click to read more ...

My Little Town Seen At Night From The ISS In Space!

Night picture from the ISS over the Midwest looking east - I live inside the blue circle

(click pic to enlarge)

 I saw this pic taken from the International Space Station posted on the Aviation Heritage Press facebook page last night and noticed right away that it was a great nighttime view of Chicago and much of the Midwest. Then I thought, hey, I live in the Midwest!... so I got to looking a little closer and after identifying several larger cities, I found South Bend and Elkhart (pretty much side by side), and then found Fort Wayne.

 Then, seeing the smaller city of Plymouth straight south of South Bend (on a line heading toward the big city of Indianapolis), I then drew an imaginary line between Plymouth and Fort Wayne which represents US Highway 30 (running kinda east-south-east) and there it was! My little town of Warsaw Indiana! It's only about 15,000 people, so I was pretty surprised that it was that easy to see from low Earth orbit. I thought this was cool enough to do a quick screen capture and then I put the circle around Warsaw and posted it on twitpic. I really didn't think anyone would care but it got quit a few views and I got several comments on twitter about it.

 So tonight I decided to see if I could replicate the view in Google Earth. Below is what I came up with to help you better see what the nighttime pic is showing. It's pretty accurate, tho I might be off just a tad. The tilted view is from 259 miles up, and it looks like the ISS runs 173 to 286 miles in altitude, so I may be pretty close to the actual altitude that the pic was taken from. Cool stuff! Possibly the coolest part from the actual pic above is the blue edge line that shows where day is turning into night. It's called the 'terminator', and it's just really beautiful. (click here to see both pix stacked for comparison)

(click pic to enlarge)     Google Earth image of the same view from 259 miles up

 One last thing that makes all this very interesting... the image is actually one of many that's part of a new book coming out this Fall from the Aviation Heritage Press. It's called Lights Of Mankind: The Earth At Night As Seen From Space and you can pre-order it at Amazon. Here's the book description: 'Lights of Mankind' is the story of how we’ve populated this planet as told through inspiring, panoramic photographs of Earth at night. It showcases unexpected and breathtaking photos made possible by the latest light-sensitive cameras and the newly installed Cupola on the International Space Station—pictures that have already awed hundreds of thousands Space Station fans. 

 The book looks pretty interesting to me. I'll see if I can get a copy and review it soon to give you a better idea of what it's all about. From what I see of it so far, I'm inclined to say it's out of this world : )

Awesome Cockpit Video: Jason Newburg - Viper Pitts At OSH10

 This must see cockpit video from viperairshows on youtube is on par with the Sean Tucker video at Chicago from last year - it's not only low level aerobatics at the highest level, but this is at Oshkosh! Jason Newburg really tore the sky up at OSH10 in the Viper Pitts, and you can really see that in this video. It's also an excellent opportunity to watch the rudder and elevator during the maneuvers. I enjoy that as much as any of it because you can learn a lot from watching where the control surfaces are and the effect it has on the airplane.

 It's also very cool to watch the smoke behind the airplane, as well as the smoke that's flown thru in various maneuvers. Pay attention to the rolling tailside that starts at about the 3:15 mark... once the airplane stops the vertical climb, Jason turns the smoke off and then keeps rolling as the airplane descends backwards. It's awesome watching him work the rudder pretty much from stop to stop to keep it falling straight backward - and it goes on for a really long time!

 I also really like the hangin'-on-the-prop pass that starts at the 5:30 mark. It's interesting to see what visual clues he's using as he has the airplane nearly stopped, hanging on the prop. Here again I like watching the tail surfaces as they move... and you can see some high frequency vibration in the fabric on the stab, and the stab itself from all of the intense turbulent flow and vibrations. One of the pix below I took while he was performing that same element at OSH10.

 I checked the Viper Airshows schedule and I don't see Jason listed for OSH11, so I'm not sure what's up with that. I'm trying to get some details to see if that's really the case. Regardless, he's listed at several other shows this summer and I highly recommend you check his show out if you can. It's hot, hot stuff!

Jason Newburg at OSH10 - possibly the same performance as the one in the video
 

Jason hangin' the Viper Pitts on the prop at OSH10

Video: Wow - An XB-70 Valkyrie Flying - In April 2011!

 Ok fine, it's not a real XB-70, but man this 1/62 scale, electric powered, and very lightweight Valkyrie is an awesome sight in the air.  There's a bunch of cool people in Texas flying all kinds of really lightweight RC models indoors. It's some of the neatest RC flying I've ever seen. This video is from the 2011 SPEF indoor RC event.

 There's such a grace and beauty to these very low-wing-loading airplanes being flown away from the typically turbulent outside air. I just love this stuff! If you like this video, be sure to check out some of the others I've posted recently:

Dark Deltoid

Dyke Delta

10' C-47 (5.4 pounds!)

Amanda Younkin Franklin (1986 ~ 2011) Video Tribute

 Here's a beautiful tribute video to Amanda Franklin's airshow work with her husband Kyle.

Amanda didn't just walk the wing... she rode the sky - heart and soul.

Amanda Younkin Franklin service - info from Younkin Airshows facebook page:

Tuesday, June 7 · 10:00am - 5:00pm

Fayetteville First Baptist Church

20 East Dickson

Fayetteville, AR

Endeavour Does The Fast-Gear-Drop For The Last Time (2 Videos)

 The end of the line for Shuttle Endeavour was reached at 2:35am eastern time this morning with a landing in darkness at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The video above gives you a great view of a beautiful landing... and remember, the fire flashes seen near the vertical stabilizer are from one of the auxiliary power units as it does a controlled burn-off of the highly toxic and dangerously unstable hydrazine fuel that powers them. It's all completely normal.

 This last-ever mission for Endeavour, STS-134, was a very successful final mission for the youngest of all of the Shuttles, and it leaves us just one final mission in the Shuttle Program: STS-135 with Atlantis, currently scheduled for launch on July 8, 2011.

 You probably know I like to take a little different look at the way things tick in the world of aviation/aerospace, and I found a video to help me with an interesting point with Endeavour's landing gear. It all starts with the fact that the shuttles are one of the few aircraft to takeoff with their landing gear up, but then extend it for landing. And if you've been paying attention, the shuttles extend their gear pretty fast. I never really gave the retraction side of the gear much thought until I watched the video below. There's not enough info with the video to know if the gear typically fights the force of gravity in such a lazy manner, but really, there's no need for it to go up in a hurry anyway. 

 And it's true, watching a main gear leg retract and the door close behind it for over a minute and a half isn't exactly exciting, but I'm enough of a geek to really enjoy it. If you get bored and wanna bail, hop over and check out the CoolPix I posted from back in February 2010 when Endeavour made another night landing... it's very cool stuff. 

 Welcome home Endeavour, you've served US well.

Got a minute and a half?  Endeavour main gear retraction

Mile High Fanny Pack! Martin Jetpack Reaches 5,000 Feet (+Video)

Martin Jetpack in a low flight with a real live person strapped in (all photos: Martin Jetpack)

(4 pix and 1 video)

 On May 21st 2011, the Martin Jetpack achieved some impressive results in a high altitude flight test, reaching a pretty staggering 5,000 feet! That's a massive leap compared to any other flight tests conducted so far. And, tho the low altitude test pictured above features a real live pilot, the high altitude test had Jetson, their in-house test dummy (somewhat like Myth Busters' Buster) strapped in, and the actual control duties were handled by RC pilot James Bowker, who was riding in a helicopter.

 And while your first thought might be that flying the Jetpack unmanned is a bit of a cop out, it's far from it. The unmanned configuration accomplishes the goal of remaining extremely safe in these days of pushing the flight envelope while also proving the UAV aspect of the Jetpack. Glenn Martin and his crew in New Zealand are exploring all the ways this unique aircraft can be used in a remotely piloted mode as well as the eventual goal of manned, recreational flight. 

Jetpack in UAV mode firing the Ballistic Recovery System after the high altitude test flight

 You still might struggle with the idea of calling a piston engine driving two ducted fans a 'Jetpack', and I understand your struggle... that's why I've moved on to the 'FannyPack' name... well at least part of the time. Some of the hardcore Rocketeers of the world might be frustrated that it isn't really jet-powered, but all things considered, and based on what I see in the video below, the Martin Jetpack is looking pretty impressive as a FannyPack : )

Click to read more ...