Video: High Performance Sailplane And Spectacular 'Cloud Flying'

 I was blessed to solo in a glider on my 14th birthday (way back in 1975!), and even got some high performance time in a 15 meter wing Schweizer 1-35 while still just 14. Unfortunately, as I grew older my opportunities to soar were greatly diminished. However, I know that I'm seriously gonna look into getting current in a sailplane as soon as my finances allow - maybe this next summer.

 There's just nothing like flying without an engine, it's pure beauty, grace and is off-the-scale awesome. This video gives an fabulous view of a high performance sailplane flying in Scotland. They're at a fairly high altitude and are returning to the airport after flying in the strong rising air of a mountain wave. The view from up high in the midst of the clouds is fantastic. They even fly along the edges and into the clouds at times. Normally that would require a full IFR clearance, but in the UK they have some interesting and unusual rules that apply to sailplanes and 'cloud flying'. You can learn a little more about their cloud flying regs here, but mostly I suggest you just watch the video and enjoy the ride!

The V-22 Osprey 'Tiltrotor' Does Not Suck!

V-22 Osprey being refueled by a KC-130 - what a view!

(5 pix) 

 Duh, it wouldn't make much sense for the V-22 to suck a load of fuel from the tanker... it gets pumped into it just like every other air-to-air refueling operation. Prove positive that the Osprey does not suck!

 Seriously tho, I've been doing some research on the V-22 tiltrotor and on the 1960's era XC-142 4-engine tiltwing aircraft. I'll have that detailed comparo coming up before long, but I thought it might be cool to check out several pix of the V-22 doing some inflight refueling that I found while researching. Seems like a slightly nerve-wracking task to plug in to the tanker drogue without using one of those huge blades to chop things up a bit. However, I'm guessing it's really more of a head issue, and once you get that straightened out, it's probably hardly any different than any other aircraft. That would still make it a lot of work tho as inflight refueling is not exactly a walk in the park for the receiver aircraft.

 Oh, and while the debate is still very passionate about whether the V-22 is a viable aircraft for military use, I'm likely to come down on the side of: yes it is... so no, it does not suck. Now please, go enjoy the cool refueling pix : ) 

 

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Caption Contest #46 - Ends Wednesday 12.29.10 At 9PM EST

 Well, we've made it thru Christmas and now we have our sights set on the New Year. But before we say adios to 2010 we really need to squeeze in one more Caption Contest. I imagined several funny captions to go with this pic, so hopefully you guys can whip up some fun with it. 

 In case you're interested, the airplane is the Avro Canada C102 Jetliner. Only one was built, but it was the second jet-powered airliner to fly... ever. And at that, its first flight was only a couple weeks behind the de Havilland Comet, all the way back in 1949. It never made it into production as it turns out tho, but it's a pretty interesting story that I'll be posting about before long.

 Anyway, 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 who wants to can cast their vote will be able to starting Thursday morning and running thru til 9pm EST Friday, New Year's Eve. The winner will be posted Saturday morning 1-1-11, New Year's Day! Have fun, and Happy New year!

The Real HondaJet (N420HJ) Makes First Flight

First fully conforming HondaJet made its first flight on 12-21-10  (photo: Honda)

 The first HondaJet that conforms to the design that will move ahead into certfication made its initial flight last Monday, December 20, 2010. It was very successful and puts the project on pace to make first deliveries of the 7 seater with a 420 knot max cruise speed in the third quarter of 2012.

 Honestly, I'm not extremely excited over what Honda has come up with in the HondaJet... but don't misunderstand, I think it's great and all, but in the end it's just another bizjet to me. However, I'm very happy to celebrate the accomplishment that this first flight represents on the human level. Most of us have no idea how much work, dedication and tenacity it takes for a company, and especially for the individual people, to make it thru a project of this size. Congratulations to designer Michimasa Fujino and all the people involved in reaching this point! I hope you all hang tough thru the certification process and bring the world another outstanding tool for businesses around the world.

 Join the celebration by checking out the first flight video below.

Mitsuo Fuchida, Pearl Harbor, & The Real Meaning Of Christmas

Japanese Navy Airman Mitsuo Fuchida who commanded the 1941 Pearl Harbor air attack

 One of the most amazing stories to come out of World War II is likely one you've never even heard about. It's not only a fascinating story, but it's the perfect one to acknowledge on this, Christmas day.

 Mitsuo Fuchida (1902 - 1976) was the Imperial Navy Airman who lead the air attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Fuchida had a passion for the Japanese Empire, and for flying. But events that took place shortly after the war was over would transform him into a passionate Christian who spent the rest of his life sharing the gospel, Christ's message of forgiveness and salvation, in both the United States and Japan. He even became a U.S. citizen in 1960.

 You might find this an odd story to have on an aviation blog due to the deep spiritual meaning, but the truth is that man's quest to understand where we came from and where we go when we die, is unquestionably the most important information on all of earth. So if you're inclined to turn away right now, I humbly ask you instead to read on. Read the words below from Mitsuo Fuchida himself about the events of Pearl Harbor, and then how he came to understand God's plan and purpose for forgiveness. Fuchida shared our love for aviation, but through an amazing sequence of events, he found that in the end, it is Christ who gives meaning and purpose to life.

Jacob DeShazer, bombardier of the last B-25 to take off in the Doolittle raid on Tokyo

 Fuchida's story includes a powerful connection to Jacob DeShazer, the bombardier of the last of the B-25's to take off from the USS Hornet in the Doolittle raid. 16 B-25's with 80 men total carried out that mission knowing they wouldn't have enough fuel to return. Of those 80 men, all but 3 survived the mission, but 8 men, including DeShazer were captured and became prisoners of war.

 But shortly after the war was over, Fuchida would receive a pamphlet from the hand of DeShazer entitled 'I Was a Prisoner of Japan', and that set in motion an amazing story of forgiveness. 

 Read now this account from Mitsuo Fuchida, starting with details of the attack on Pearl Harbor, about how the true meaning of Christmas (Jesus Christ!) changed his life forever...

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Everybody's Doing The Electric Cricket!

Hugues Duval in a Cri Cri aircraft powered by two 35 hp Electravia electric motors

  Ok, maybe not 'everybody', but first it was Aerospace giant EADS building the little 4-motor electric Cri Cri and then right on their heels was this one pictured here that uses two 35 hp electric motors from Electravia. Both actually had their first flights back in September. Kinda interesting that one of the smallest airplanes in the world has already been so successful at demonstrating the flight potential of electric power systems.

BTW, when the 'Cri Cri' first appeared from French designer Michel Colomban in 1973, the name Cri Cri was also known to be interchangeable with 'Cricket'. I wasn't able to confirm exactly how the two words are connected (I've seen several different stories) but regardless of which name you use, you're talking about one of the most unique aircraft ever designed and built. I can still remember the unbelievable sight of two Crickets doing some pretty hardcore low-level aerobatics at Oshkosh in 1981... still one of the most impressive aerial displays I've even seen!

 The real story here however is the electric propulsion systems. We're seeing several innovative ideas pop up around the world showing the potential of electric power for flight, but there's something extra encouraging to me to see this very familiar airframe so effectively adapted to it. It's almost getting easy to imagine that before long we'll see amazingly affordable and effective 'sport flying' machines readily available. In fact, the 'sport flying' segment is probably the perfect place for this technology to get an initial grip. Battery technology right now is still gonna keep overall run time fairly short, which is very well suited to the guy just looking for 30 minutes to an hour of cheap fun flying. And, with the relatively low power output motors that are currently available, smaller single seat airplanes are the best fit for these quiet powerplants. 

Hugues Duval and the electric motor powered Cri Cri in flight

 The rapid pace that things are changing is certainly making it seem possible that electric propulsion systems large enough for even 4-place aircraft may not be as far away as we thought just a few years back. In fact, the electric powered Cessna 172 concept from Bye Energy is a strong first step in that direction. That project, which includes participation from Cessna, is aimed at eventually getting an STC for the conversion which would make a 2-seat trainer that could fly for 2 hours and use no avgas at all. The concept seems to make sense... and it's unique applications like this that will slowly open the door for electric airplanes (and advancing motor and battery technology) to get a foothold into a market desperately in need of innovation.

 The biggest challenge for electric power for aviation seems to come from dealing with what to do about 'refueling' while on longer flights, or when traveling great distances. The infrastructure needed for replaceable batteries, or the technology advances required for 20 minute re-charging seem to be a really long way off. But overall, the progress already seen is pretty exciting.

 Lastly, it's interesting to note that the Cri Cri pictured here, with the Electravia motors totaling 70 hp, wasn't just barely able to get off the ground, it actually reached 162 mph, essentially the airframe's maximum design speed! They claim that using full power would have propelled it all the way up to 220 mph! When you consider that the Cri Cri is far from a 'motorglider with a massive wing', you can see that realistic applications for normal airframes powered by the electron are definitely on the horizon. I think I'm pretty happy about that... I wouldn't mind doing the little electric Cricket myself : )

CoolPix - Modern Military: North American F-107 'Man Eater'

(click pic for hi-res)  F-107A aircraft designed and built by North American in the mid 50's 

(2 CoolPix and 1 video)

 If you asked me about the F-107 before yesterday, all I'd really been able to tell you is that it's the one with the air intake oddly positioned right above and behind the cockpit. I've known of the existence of this airplane since I was a kid in the 70's, but I'd never paid any real attention to it. Well, I'm paying attention now, and wow, it was a pretty fascinating piece of work as a tactical fighter-bomber concept. As a quick side note, the first ever AirPigz Air Force Museum 'meet-up' (in Dayton, Ohio) is now tentatively scheduled for the weekend of January 29 and 30, and one of the three F-107's built is on display in the museum's Research & Development/Flight Test Gallery. Send me an email via this link for more info on getting in on this meet-up. It'll be a great way to have some avgeek fun (and education) in the middle of winter... and admission to the museum is free! 

 Back to the F-107. So, I wonder if the eject handle might actually have been labeled 'injest'... ok probably not. But still, having a massive inlet sucking huge amounts of air to feed a Pratt & Whitney J75 turbojet right behind your head is not the kind of thing you easily get used to. In the end, due to the F-105 Thunderchief from Republic being selected for the role of fighter-bomber, the F-107 never went past the stage of just three test aircraft, and thus never got an official name. Unofficially it was known as the Super Super Sabre or sometimes the Ultra Sabre, but pilots were more likely to call it the 'Man Eater'. And in case you're wondering, no one ever ejected from an F-107, so we never found out if there really was anything to worry about concerning becoming jet engine food!

 The F-107 began its development as the F-100B, an outgrowth of the F-100 Super Sabre, but it wound up becoming pretty much a whole new airplane, so it eventually got the 107 designation. It was a noticeably larger airplane with much higher max speed, Mach 2+ compared to Mach 1.25 for the F-100. That top-mounted inlet was originally mounted below the cockpit, which itself was a departure from the hole-in-the-nose inlet of the F-100. But the Air Force wanted the airplane to be able to deploy a nuclear weapon that was to be carried partially up inside the bottom of the fuselage. Issues arose with the lower air intake creating a shockwave that caused problems with launching the nuclear weapon, which lead to a retrofit re-positioning. You might already know that the F-105 avoided all of these issues by having its air intake placed at the leading edge of the wing at the root, on both sides of the fuselage.

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Mystery Shadow Identified... Awesome Power Of Bacon Displayed!

 The amazing power of bacon has been displayed in the last 24 hours by several people trading precious brain cells for the chance to win a sizzling bacon sandwich at Oshkosh 2011 by trying to ID the aircraft represented by that little mystery shadow pic I posted yesterday. Congrats to 'Tican' for giving it one last try and getting it right! It is indeed the Cessna UC-78 'Bamboo Bomber', also known as the AT-17 Bobcat, and the T-50.

 The challenge of trying to figure out the airplane from just a partial shadow was even bigger than I really meant to subject you all to, but I'm really glad the answer was found. I'll be putting another bacon sandwich on the line before long with some other twisted and unique avgeek ID challenge... stay tuned : )

'Name The Plane' - ID MAKE And MODEL For Free Bacon! (12.20.10)

 The last time I tried a really hard, super small cropped 'Name The Plane' contest, it lasted about an hour (P-61 rear windows). But it was supposed to take at least 2 days for someone to get the right answer... so this time around, all you get is the shadow, and not quite all of it at that.

 If you are the first person to correctly ID this aircraft by MAKE and MODEL, you'll win a bacon sandwich at Oshkosh 2011. Your answers go in the 'comments' area, 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 hey, have some fun. Whatever you do, don't let it keep you up tonight trying to figure out what it is!

In-Flight Video Of The Sikorsky X2 Coaxial Eggbeater (300 mph!)

 This video is a couple months old now, but if you haven't seen any of the Sikorsky X2 in flight, I think you'll enjoy it. Well, you may have to turn your speakers down some to actually 'enjoy' it... they have some really annoying music running thru most of the video. However, there's a ton of great views of the X2 in flight from back in September when it reached the program's design goal of 250 knots airspeed in straight and level flight. Pretty impressive stuff to be sure. It even reached 260+ knots (300 mph) with the nose slightly lowered.

 It's also interested to see what appears to be a mockup of a version intended for genuine military applications in the hangar at the start of the video. With Sikorksy engineering some advanced blade technology into the coaxial counter-rotating system, and that highly effective 'push' fan at the rear, the X2 seems to be showing itself to be a truly viable answer to the VTOL with fast cruise question. Should be very interesting to see where it all leads.

 (previous post): airpigz.com/blog/2010/8/6/sikorsky-x2-pushes-its-way-into-the-rotorcraft-record-book.html