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I want a movie bad guy to take that thing through midtown Manhattan.
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Jan 14, 2014 02:42
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Koesj posted:Whoa whoa whoa that's awesome! Seeing as how he flew in Tu-4s and -16s I gather he was in Long Range Aviation? How hard was the transition from piston to turbojet engines for them? Were there a lot more accidents? MrYenko posted:Does Russia have a significant ground based navigational system, as in VORs, NDBs, things of that nature? Or was navigation done primarily by sun and star sightings and dead reckoning? I would assume that in military aircraft, traditional navigation was practiced regardless, but was it the norm in Soviet airlines as well? Nebakenezzer posted:On the Tu-114, how bad was the NVH? Was it a good airplane to fly? Thanks for the questions, I'll check in with him and answer tomorrow. I have a good anecdote regarding accidents, and I'll tell it with the answer to the first question.
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Jan 14, 2014 02:44
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smooth jazz posted:They might be getting it ready to ship to YYX for turboprop conversion Wait, they do turbine conversions for Cansos now? Suicide Watch posted:Someone should do an Air America post in honor of page 420. I wish i hadn't worn out my old Southern Air Transport shirt  My dad used to charter Hercs from them occasionally.Though, since Lynden took over their operations I've chartered one of those L-100s myself. I'm really curious what kind of crazy stuff they may be up to these days, since a yellow and green plane with a giant outline of Alaska on the tail isn't exactly inconspicuous - but they clearly do use them!
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Jan 14, 2014 02:55
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Patrick Smith found a Soviet-era commuter jet - the Yak-40 - in Liberia.
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Jan 14, 2014 05:36
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OK, that's the second Russian aircraft I've seen in nature with engine covers on.
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Jan 14, 2014 16:31
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Has anyone watched The Wind Rises? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imtdgdGOB6Q I'm not an anime fan, but a film by Miyazaki about Jiro Horikoshi, the guy who designed the A6M, seems like it could be worth watching. Anyone know what the plane in the trailer at 0:59 is? Given the weird cowling and intakes it might just be some weird animu plane but, well, there was a lot of weird poo poo in between the wars.
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Jan 14, 2014 17:34
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It looks vaguely like a Mitsubishi 2-engined bomber, but I can't find very many images of the early ones. Miyazaki is a big aircraft nut so there's a pretty good chance this is a real plane, but it might be ultra-obscure even in Japan. It could be this one, but I can't make out the engine very well.
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Jan 14, 2014 18:03
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wdarkk posted:It looks vaguely like a Mitsubishi 2-engined bomber, but I can't find very many images of the early ones. Miyazaki is a big aircraft nut so there's a pretty good chance this is a real plane, but it might be ultra-obscure even in Japan.  I'd guess yes, take those cowls off over the radials, and it's that one e: looking closer, definitely that one, the cowls may even be exact matches, the starboard engine looks like the cowl is 'bumpy'
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Jan 14, 2014 18:11
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Serves me right for not scrolling down all the way. That does seem to be it. It's got the two windows on the front in the right position too.
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Jan 14, 2014 18:21
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Norwegian Air Ambulance hit power lines and went down like a brick today, killing the pilot and doctor and leaving the medic in critical condition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_z8cYlqQIU My team runs the IT systems for EMS in this area. I didn't know these guys personally, but strange how seing the aircraft status as "UNAVAILABLE FOR DUTY" in the system hit a lot harder than seing the footage in the news. The power lines were reportedly 22kV-lines and in the footage it looks like the engine just quit. Could the voltage have shorted the engine causing it to just up and die or something?
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Jan 14, 2014 21:15
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lushka16 posted:My grandfather was a navigator in the following aircraft: What was Russian navigator training like? How did the selection, instruction, schoolhouse operate? What was their primary means of fixing? (Cell, dead reckoning, navaids, radar, visual?) What was their interaction with the rest of the crew like? How did they cope with navigation at extreme northern latitudes? (Did they use the same Grid nav system as the USAF?) Did he save any of his old charts?
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Jan 14, 2014 22:12
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Phanatic posted:Has anyone watched The Wind Rises? I watched it in November when they released it for like a week to qualify it for the Oscars. It's really great! Although, the airplanes in it weren't the ones I was expecting - the timeline covered by the movie is pretty early and barely even gets into WWII. Not that that's a bad thing.
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Jan 14, 2014 23:54
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Phanatic posted:Has anyone watched The Wind Rises? It looks amazing. Filmmaker of Miyazaki's caliber + Miyazaki's love of machines + story of the man who designed the Zero = sold. I've seen the (old, black and white) movie about the guy who designed the Spitfire. Is it true he actually worked himself to death doing it?
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Jan 15, 2014 02:13
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Nebakenezzer posted:It looks amazing. Filmmaker of Miyazaki's caliber + Miyazaki's love of machines + story of the man who designed the Zero = sold. Not so much; RJ Mitchell was sick with cancer for a number of years before the Spitfire flew. Whether or not his work on the project interfered with getting proper treatment is debatable, but it does make for a rather  story of sacrifice for Queen and Country regardless of its veracity.
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Jan 15, 2014 02:36
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I'll be speaking in my grandfather's voice. Koesj posted:Whoa whoa whoa that's awesome! Seeing as how he flew in Tu-4s and -16s I gather he was in Long Range Aviation? How hard was the transition from piston to turbojet engines for them? Were there a lot more accidents? I was in long range aviation. Since I am Jewish, they did not allow me to leave the borders of the USSR, for fear that I would defect. You'd be surprised (or maybe not!) how long you can fly and still stay in the Soviet Union. The transition from piston to turbojet was somewhat difficult for everyone. There were lots of accidents, though fortunately I wasn't involved in any of them. We had 3 months of training on jet engines, which involved learning a set of new instruments and speeds. There was also constant re-training during those times. MrYenko posted:Does Russia have a significant ground based navigational system, as in VORs, NDBs, things of that nature? Or was navigation done primarily by sun and star sightings and dead reckoning? I would assume that in military aircraft, traditional navigation was practiced regardless, but was it the norm in Soviet airlines as well? Russia didn't have a good VOR system until my days are Aeroflot (60s-80s), so during my Army times we barely used it. We used dead reckoning constantly - there was never a moment during navigation that I wasn't using basic data (heading, speed) to figure out where we were. We did have an NBD system, do I was always able to use that to verify my position. As an Aeroflot pilot, I knew which corridor I was flying, so it was very easy to use NBDs. Basically all you had to do was point at your next waypoint, account for wind speed, and keep the instrument pointed at 0. As an aside, 95% of navigation was accounting for wind speed. We had a doppler based instrument which allowed us to know wind speed, ground speed, air speed, etc. Though I was trained to navigate by stars, it was VERY rarely done. Nebakenezzer posted:On the Tu-114, how bad was the NVH? Was it a good airplane to fly? Absolutely terrible NVH. The cockpit was especially noisy, and the vibration was constant. Not that it was terrible, but it did really wear down on you over time. It was hard to concentrate, so you had to use a lot more mental power to do basic tasks. [I forgot to ask him if it was a good airplane to fly, will ask tomorrow] Dead Reckoning posted:What was Russian navigator training like? How did the selection, instruction, schoolhouse operate? What was their primary means of fixing? (Cell, dead reckoning, navaids, radar, visual?) [This is a really neat question which I'll answer in an effortpost this week. The story of how he became a navigator is definitely unusual]
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Jan 15, 2014 03:33
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Neat stuff Lushka; you're giving us a very rare perspective into Soviet aviation with this. If you don't mind, I have a few questions of my own: -Did your grandfather ever participate in any inflight refuelling while flying the Tu-16? For those that don't know, certain variants of the Tu-16 used an unusual wingtip-to-wingtip refuelling system, where the receiver would collect the drogue from the tanker by flying over top of the line, then move laterally until it connected; to my eye, it was a silly and dangerous solution. Here's a pic:  -Was he able to participate in normal VVS operations even with his restriction on where he could go? Was his aircraft ever intercepted by Western fighters? If so, could he describe what it was like from a Soviet perspective. -Considering the length of his career, your grandfather likely saw quite a few aircraft types come and go in both civilian and military service. Would he be willing to relate what the general consensus was amongst the aviation comminity on some of these, namely the M-4/3M, the Tu-22 and the Tu-144? Are there any aircraft that I haven't mentioned that the community had strong opinions for or against? -What was Aeroflot's opinion of the IL-62 in general? Based on what I've read and what I've heard, it was lukewarm at best once the whole "shiny new jet" mentality wore off. -Of all the aircraft he worked with, which does he look upon most/least fondly and why? MrChips fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 04:39
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Happy to ask! I'm quite thrilled to ask him questions; we have a very close relationship and this gives me a great chance to ask him technical questions about his extremely interesting life. Though I'm fluent in Russian, I have a hard time teasing out detailed answers since I don't know a lot of his terminology. Google Translate helps a lot, but I might miss some details. If I miss anything, please ask again. I'm going to try to answer some questions tomorrow.
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Jan 15, 2014 05:27
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Phanatic posted:Has anyone watched The Wind Rises? The engines look like the Hiro G2H, but the nose is wrong.
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Jan 15, 2014 06:37
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Caconym posted:Norwegian Air Ambulance hit power lines and went down like a brick today, killing the pilot and doctor and leaving the medic in critical condition. That EC135 is a twin, which means both engines would have had to quit simultaneously. That aircraft uses FADEC, so perhaps the voltage caused the engine controllers to pack it in? Or more likely, the electrical discharge incapacitated the pilot, who dropped the collective.
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Jan 15, 2014 14:32
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It might seem like a stupid question, but similar to terrain map, has anyone developed a warning map for urban areas specifically for power lines or other dangerous items that pose a risk to low-flying aircraft? It seems like something readily visible on satellite mapping already from a 2d perspective, which could then be optimized in dense or high risk areas.
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Jan 15, 2014 15:41
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Power lines are not "readily visible" on satellite images.
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Jan 15, 2014 15:51
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Polymerized Cum posted:That EC135 is a twin, which means both engines would have had to quit simultaneously. That aircraft uses FADEC, so perhaps the voltage caused the engine controllers to pack it in? Or more likely, the electrical discharge incapacitated the pilot, who dropped the collective. Or perhaps hitting the wires grenaded the main gearbox.
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Jan 15, 2014 15:55
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ausgezeichnet posted:OK, that's the second Russian aircraft I've seen in nature with engine covers on. You're ok, it's only 2/3 
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Jan 15, 2014 16:32
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I don't think I've ever seen a trijet with a #2 engine cover installed. Someone loved that airplane, once. 
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Jan 15, 2014 16:37
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helno posted:Or perhaps hitting the wires grenaded the main gearbox. Still seems to be pretty good rotation on the main rotor. I'm guessing the pilot was incapacitated and either dropped the collective or just didn't do an autorotation. Admittedly a 0/0 autorotation is really drat hard.
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Jan 15, 2014 17:02
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hobbesmaster posted:Power lines are not "readily visible" on satellite images. High voltage transmission lines certainly are visible from sat imagery, as they usually have deforested and maintained corridors. I guess in more built up areas they would be less visible. Sure, residential distribution power lines won't be visible but it seems like most of these incidents seem to involve the much higher, wider spanning high power lines. Perhaps with the towers far enough apart that peripheral vision can't include them, it becomes necessary to see them beforehand or pick up on the actual wire for the pilot? I don't know about other countries but in Canada all the major transmission lines are documented in the publicly available CanVec data. It's an absolute certainty that the entity (government or private) has detailed data for their tower and line positions, and although making it available would have a cost, I'm pretty sure the outage, damage and deaths from even rare incidents would make it worthwhile.
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Jan 15, 2014 17:19
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The video is kind of crap but it also could have taken out the control system (swashplate etc). I doubt the pilot was electrocuted as the airframe is a far better conductor than he would be. Ether way
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Jan 15, 2014 17:21
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Power transmission lines are generally already depicted on sectional charts. Helicopters in general, and medical helicopters in particular tend to operate in much closer proximity to ground features than just about any other aircraft, and are responsible for their own clearance of obstacles. The answer here would be to certify first responders as ground spotters for life flights, and not allow then to approach and land without a spotter with two way radio communications, but that would drastically limit the usefulness of airborne medevac.
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Jan 15, 2014 18:07
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MrYenko posted:Power transmission lines are generally already depicted on sectional charts. Helicopters in general, and medical helicopters in particular tend to operate in much closer proximity to ground features than just about any other aircraft, and are responsible for their own clearance of obstacles. I thought medevac had CB radios. Is that not true? I thought there'd already be a way for first responders to contact the birds directly.
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Jan 15, 2014 23:34
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YF19pilot posted:I thought medevac had CB radios. Is that not true? I thought there'd already be a way for first responders to contact the birds directly. Communications almost certainly isn't the issue - making sure you have a trained, competent, and certified responder/spotter on the ground to perform the task would be challenging and expensive. Rescue operations are risky, there's no doubt about it. The risk is justified by the lives saved.
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Jan 15, 2014 23:55
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Medevac aircraft have tons of radios. Ours have VHF Lo, VHF high, UHF, and P25 digital. That's in addition to the air band radios and the satellite phone. Responders on the ground can easily contact the aircraft with information about potential hazards. The problem is, even though my agency provides free landing zone safety training, responders often pick very poor LZs or fail to identify hazards. Yes, we see the row of pine trees half a mile away, but you missed the power lines above your head, chief. Ultimately the air crew are responsible for keeping their eyes peeled, and calling GO AROUND if a hazard is identified. The aircraft will climb to a safe altitude, and the crew will discuss what was wrong and how to correct it. Medevac aircraft operate at such low altitudes during scene flights that sectionals are useless. TAWS helps a little, night vision is a huge help.
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Jan 16, 2014 00:00
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Polymerized Cum posted:Medevac aircraft have tons of radios. Ours have VHF Lo, VHF high, UHF, and P25 digital. That's in addition to the air band radios and the satellite phone. Responders on the ground can easily contact the aircraft with information about potential hazards. The problem is, even though my agency provides free landing zone safety training, responders often pick very poor LZs or fail to identify hazards. Yes, we see the row of pine trees half a mile away, but you missed the power lines above your head, chief. Yeah, the helicopter in question had 6 radios. Dual flightcom vhf, dual TETRA for ground and dual analog vhf for ground in areas without TETRA. Plus a GSM phone. We're in a rollout of TETRA scheduled to complete in 2015. The incident it was responding to is right on the border of TETRA coverage, with police on the ground attempting to warn about the power lines on analog vhf, but not getting a reply. The pilot/medic can only monitor one set of radios at a time, and they may well have been monitoring TETRA to stay in contact with dispatch. They do have electronic maps including aerial obstacles, but not an integrated flight system. The maps live on an iPad and a toughbook and are solely used for route planning afaik. They were about to land and would have been flying visually anyway I think. Pilot was chief flight officer in the Norwegian Air Ambulance with a background from flying bell 412s for 720sqn RNoAF. They're the guys who transport our SOF and SWAT, so he'd have more experience than pretty much anyone in going low and fast and evaluating marginal landing sites.
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Jan 16, 2014 00:33
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dietcokefiend posted:It might seem like a stupid question, but similar to terrain map, has anyone developed a warning map for urban areas specifically for power lines or other dangerous items that pose a risk to low-flying aircraft? It seems like something readily visible on satellite mapping already from a 2d perspective, which could then be optimized in dense or high risk areas. There's obstacle databases and specifically power line databases. I'm unsure about transmission lines, but overall, obstacles are shown in most synthetic vision systems (Garmin, Collins HUD/HDD, HDD for Helicopters (those straight lines are powerlines). Granted the former are for planes and the latter is for the military. In general though, the difficulty with any situational awareness system is how good the data is, how up to date it is, how accurate your position is, and is it not impeding the pilot. Once you're that close to the obstacle (either because you have to or other reasons), the people on board are going to be the best tools at hand (edit: to reiterate again). There are some integrated systems that will also overlay the obstacles/power lines on a top-down 2D or 3D map, but are more or less used to see if your flight plan will have something to look out for, but none of these systems will warn you or are accurate enough to fly blind into.
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Jan 16, 2014 01:24
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MrYenko posted:I don't think I've ever seen a trijet with a #2 engine cover installed. Someone loved that airplane, once. One of the MiG-21's in a museum in Vietnam still has a protective cover in place over the SRZO-2 Khrom-Nikel/"Odd Rods" IFF antennae on the top of the tailfin. e: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Vietnam---Air/Mikoyan-Gurevich-MiG-21PFL/1100421/L/&sid=01751ccc9d941973ff61b88cfee2ba74 Plastic_Gargoyle fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Jan 16, 2014 |
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Jan 16, 2014 02:07
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Polymerized Cum posted:Medevac aircraft have tons of radios. Ours have VHF Lo, VHF high, UHF, and P25 digital. That's in addition to the air band radios and the satellite phone. Responders on the ground can easily contact the aircraft with information about potential hazards. The problem is, even though my agency provides free landing zone safety training, responders often pick very poor LZs or fail to identify hazards. Yes, we see the row of pine trees half a mile away, but you missed the power lines above your head, chief. Yeah I've heard horror stories about the creative ways ground responders have tried to kill evac helicopters. Whether it be trees or powerlines, confined areas, or slope landings. I can't imagine doing that at night to boot.
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Jan 16, 2014 02:24
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Polymerized Cum posted:Medevac aircraft have tons of radios. Ours have VHF Lo, VHF high, UHF, and P25 digital. That's in addition to the air band radios and the satellite phone. Responders on the ground can easily contact the aircraft with information about potential hazards. The problem is, even though my agency provides free landing zone safety training, responders often pick very poor LZs or fail to identify hazards. Yes, we see the row of pine trees half a mile away, but you missed the power lines above your head, chief. In my town the fire department uses a group of pre-defined LZs when dealing with Boston MedFlight and UMass Memorial LifeFlight, one of which is the (not on any chart or even with an FAA LID) helipad at the State Police headquarters. http://goo.gl/maps/yG8Sv http://goo.gl/maps/wrmb3 http://goo.gl/maps/DIKHw http://goo.gl/maps/yHbZj http://goo.gl/maps/4OZjO All are located such that the ambulance can get to one within 5 minutes from anywhere in town, which is the flight time from KBED (nearest BMF base), UMass Memorial Hospital (which is in Worcester), and any of the hospitals in Boston
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Jan 16, 2014 03:18
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Bob A Feet posted:Yeah I've heard horror stories about the creative ways ground responders have tried to kill evac helicopters. Whether it be trees or powerlines, confined areas, or slope landings. I can't imagine doing that at night to boot. I hate HATE being in the back on the way to scene flights at night. The floodlights just illuminate everything under you in a giant milky glow. You hear the pilot and your partner calling obstacles so you know everything is under control, but the aircraft is just descending into this bright white abyss. Speaking of fun ways to kill air crews, pointing your brand new 500 lumen Streamlight into the cockpit at night is a great one. I really thought our pilot was going to physically assault the firemen that glorious evening. Don't gently caress with combat vets, especially ex-Kiowa pilots.
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Jan 16, 2014 04:48
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/\ Ever hear of someone having a run-in with a laser pointer?
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Jan 16, 2014 04:56
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One approach to wires that I've heard of is a form of lidar. Uses rotating mirrors to scan a laser rangefinder beam and image the environment close to the aircraft, plus some post processing to pick out likely lines, provide collision warnings, and so forth. If you design the receiver correctly this can be a much more effective machine vision system for reliably detecting thin wires in poor ambient lighting than any pixel array imaging system. As far as I know this technology has not yet been perfected or fielded, but it struck me as having a lot of potential when I first heard of it. Has obvious military applications so it might even get funded and eventually trickle down to civilian helicopters.
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Jan 16, 2014 04:59
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BobHoward posted:One approach to wires that I've heard of is a form of lidar. Uses rotating mirrors to scan a laser rangefinder beam and image the environment close to the aircraft, plus some post processing to pick out likely lines, provide collision warnings, and so forth. If you design the receiver correctly this can be a much more effective machine vision system for reliably detecting thin wires in poor ambient lighting than any pixel array imaging system. There is a system out there that combines a VLF radio receiver tuned to pick up the 50/60 Hz radio frequency emissions from power lines; I've never used it flying fixed wing, but supposedly it clicks like a Geiger counter based on how close the aircraft gets to a power line. Doesn't do any good if the line isn't energised, though.
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Jan 16, 2014 06:58
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