Aviation MegaThread!!!!

[PvtIdaho]

Originally Posted by Heyload

I'm pretty sure the Army is about to unload some C-27's, bet we could pick up a couple fairly cheap.

I like that idea. It looks versatile enough to work government and private contracts. The big questions are acquisition and operating costs and could you sell the improved reliability/safety/performance that the C-27s would bring to the market they would compete in? I'm guessing spares aren't going to come cheap.

A good fire season could probably get the company off the ground if you could do a MAFFS conversion on the cheap. Make the wife the business owner and that'll give you a leg up in the bid process.

Get to be known as the Go-To air company for FEMA and the Interagency Fire Center (Fire teams are being mobilized in "disasters" these days) and Global Climate Change could be a real money maker.

Let me know if you need somebody to run the flight department.

p.s. we'd need to equip the aircraft with refurbed Trail 90s for crew transport on deployment. KLRs wouldn't project the desired image...

[Shadow10]

Originally Posted by oldmanb777

Beamer Pilot is right on target. I like flying. Glad I did it, and glad I could do it. I was lucky (As most are who make it to the big airlines). I had experience that could not be duplicated, that made me a better candidate than some others, even though I was not the typical astronaut physically. So they were willing to overlook a few extra lbs even though the AME (Aero Medical Dr.) recomended not to hire me. But i have beenn much healthier and used much less sick leave that most others. But I still had way too much wrapped up in my carreer for the returns. Today you can plan to spend somewhere in the area of $300,000 + and 5 or more years to get an entry level job that pays $17,000 a year with the only bennefits being almost a garrentee of some furlough time. Probably be somewhere near 10 yrs before you could think of feeding a family. You can't take your skills next door, and get a job. If you do, you start all over at the bottom. Bottom pay, worst schedules, and the first to be furloughed, again. You NEED to have other skills, and a second job. The only way we survived the bad years, was I always had a second job. And the bad years reoccur. Doesn't matter if you have 25 yrs or 5 yrs, the bad years are always just around the corner.
All so you can live under a microscope of govt,media,and company scrutiny. see what happens when you get speeding ticket, and some govt idiot in OKC thinks they should look into it. You think an IRS audit is bad, try an FAA audit. Every aspect of your private life is up to scrutiny at anytime by people who are jelous of you,hate you because you do something they can't, and they have absolutely no understanding of what you do, but have the power to make your life miserable. I like flying, I like being a pilot, I get tired of living out of a suitcase, i get tired of feeling like shit all the time because of jet lag, body clock screwed up, poor quality of available food, bio rythims screwed up, etc. I really get tired of the reduced pay and bennifits. I get tired of being hated by the company because I have to protect your life from thier quest of the bottom line, and hated by the public because I refuse to put them in harms way, so they can get where they want to go at the speed of sound when the outcome of that trip is in doubt. I hate being a target for every idiot that wants to make a big splash.

Experiences like this is what turned me off and I'm pretty sure many others. Lots of high time pilots I have spoken to have said they don't regret their choice, but if they were starting from scratch in the current climate, they would choose another career. I have personally seen a few people give up the commercial route when they experience the adversarial nature of the regulators. Many stories there. I'm more than happy to pay to have an IP with me when I fly. They need the hors and the income and I learn something every time.

[EVLED]

A few old pics to liven things up:

[mfp4073]

http://news.yahoo.com/myanmar-spitfi...013203895.html

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — An excavation team searching for a stash of legendary World War II-era British fighter aircraft in northern Myanmar said a wooden crate believed to contain one of the planes has been found, full of muddy water.
How much water damage occurred was not yet clear, and searchers could not definitively say what was inside the crate. But British aviation enthusiast David J. Cundall, who is driving the hunt for the rare Spitfire planes, called the results "very encouraging."
"It will take some time to pump the water out ... but I do expect all aircraft to be in very good condition," Cundall told reporters Wednesday in Myanmar's main city, Yangon.
The Spitfire helped Britain beat back waves of German bombers during the war that ended in 1945, and it remains the most famous British combat aircraft. About 20,000 Spitfires were built, although the dawn of the jet age quickly made the propeller-driven, single-seat planes obsolete.
As many as 140 Spitfires — three to four times the number of airworthy models known to exist — are believed to have been buried in near-pristine condition in Myanmar by American engineers as the war drew to a close.
The wooden crate was found in Myitkyina in Kachin state during a dig that began last month. Several digs are planned nationwide, including another near the airport in Yangon.
Cundall said the search team in Kachin inserted a camera in the crate and found water. What else was inside the crate was unclear and pumping out the water could take weeks, he said.
The go-ahead for excavation came in October when Myanmar's government signed an agreement with Cundall and his local partner.
Under the deal, Myanmar's government will get one plane for display at a museum, as well as half of the remaining total. DJC, a private company headed by Cundall, will get 30 percent of the total and the Myanmar partner company Shwe Taung Paw, headed by Htoo Htoo Zaw, will get 20 percent.
During the project's first phase, searchers hope to recover 60 planes: 36 planes in Mingaladon, near Yangon's international airport; six in Meikthila in central Myanmar; and 18 in Myitkyina. Others are to be recovered in a second phase.
Searchers hope the aircraft are in pristine condition, but others have said it's possible all they might find is a mass of corroded metal and rusty aircraft parts.
Cundall said the practice of burying aircraft, tanks and jeeps was common after the war.
"Basically nobody had got any orders to take these airplanes back to (the) UK. They were just surplus ... (and) one way of disposing them was to bury them," Cundall said. "The war was over, everybody wanted to go home, nobody wanted anything, so you just buried it and went home. That was it."
Stanley Coombe, a 91-year-old war veteran from Britain who says he witnessed the aircraft's burial, traveled to Myanmar to observe the search.
It is "very exciting for me because I never thought I would be allowed to come back and see where Spitfires have been buried," Coombe said. "It's been a long time since anybody believed what I said until David Cundall came along."

[Hay Ewe]

Been off line for a week, and saw something about a problem with a JAL 787, a hole in the windscreen?
I only saw the tv pics and no sound and was on a treadmill at the time

whats the story?

Hay Ewe

[Hardware02]

Originally Posted by Hay Ewe

Been off line for a week, and saw something about a problem with a JAL 787, a hole in the windscreen?
I only saw the tv pics and no sound and was on a treadmill at the time

whats the story?

Hay Ewe

Let me Google that for you...

[Hay Ewe]

Originally Posted by Hardware02

Let me Google that for you...

thank you

[Juanjo-X]

I used to build some models a few years ago. To be exact, I was building models until the born of my twins .. I'm now re-entering the plastic business again sloooowly...

I wrote articles for specialized modeling mags by that time. Perhaps you would like to have a look at them... 1/72 scale all of them. Lots of scratch-build parts... Hope you enjoy'em.

[pplassm]

Nice work!

[EvilGenius]

I forgot what it was like doing night time A&P classes.

Should be free about an hour from now.

[mfp4073]

Wow dude! I could NEVER say that again, NEVER do anything like that!

[mfp4073]

[PackMule]

Stunning work, Juanjo!


Are F111's still current in Oz?

[mfp4073]

Originally Posted by PackMule

Stunning work, Juanjo!


Are F111's still current in Oz?

Little digging shows they were retired in 2009

[ChopHawk]

incredible job Juanjo. love the seahawk and 53. we build the seahawk here in Ct, and the detail of your models is amazing. nice work