Really Cool Plane -

[a64pilot]

dancin,
You really ought to go to the mighty eighth Air Force museum. It is dedicated to those like your Dad, you would learn a lot.
I spent many years stationed at Hunter Army airfield in Savannah and went to the museum once or twice

[keepondancin]

Yes, like too many things in life, I mean to go there. I remember each time I go or return from Florida that it should be in the plans. It is right on I95. I will make a concerted effort to stop this winter.

[Adventurebound]

Originally Posted by Ron Rico

Requires permission from whom?

Thousands of hours flying, hundreds and hundreds both low level or tight formation, and the only time I've had to get permission was at FAA sanctioned air shows (and then all they wanted to see was my FAST card for the formation flying), or of course, when the tower gives me the old "cleared for the option".

Just like driving a car is a hazardous endeavor, so in flying in any environment, whether low level, formation, or just going from A to B for a hundred dollar hamburger. All you can do is be aware, plan for the worst, maintain situational awareness, and do your best planning to minimize risk. I fear the other driver in a car, or the recreational pilot out driving his airplane like he would a car, completely absorbed in his regs and GPS more than I do flying low level.

I thought everybody had their pound of flesh. Have to loose weight so keep it coming In Australia you do get permission. Regardless, I don't look for loop holes in legislation to find ways of doing risky flying. The biggest danger of course is flying at power line height and up dead end ravines that you cant fly out of. At sea there arn't many power lines and ravines so the pilot is relatively safe. Ok, you low buzz a boat and the single handed sailer is on the fore deck fixing something holding on in the rough seas. You buzz by, scare him enough and he falls overboard. You look back laughing your head off and all you see is the boat sailing away, not the doomed sailer splashing around in the ocean. Next day you hear the news report-yacht found abandonded and sailer missing. The perfect murder, no whitnesses and no evidence and you are free to do it again.

May I ask you sir how you 'plan' to avoid power lines and other obstructions at the low altitude you have flown at. Do you have a plan for possible engine failure and the type of terrain you are prepared to do a forced landing.

[Andrew B.]

[wellin]

[QUOTE=

May I ask you sir how you 'plan' to avoid power lines and other obstructions at the low altitude you have flown at. Do you have a plan for possible engine failure and the type of terrain you are prepared to do a forced landing.[/QUOTE]

Yes, that is the primary job of the pilot. And what seperates pilots from people that just steer planes around.


Sent from my SCH-I415 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[dannc]

Originally Posted by keepondancin

My Dad made the full number of missions, don't remember is it was 20 or 25. When I took the ride I seem to remember that some of the gunners had to get in their position while on the ground. I might be wrong, but if not, talk about the loneliest person in the world. I was told that the crews were assigned a plane in the US and flew it over. Back then, or a little later, you wouldn't venture far from a car dealer when you bought a car and drove it a bit. Imagine jumping in a plane for it's first few flights and do a trans-atlantic crossing. And we worry about boats.

The ball gunner on a B17 could get in and out of his position in flight, unless there was a problem. I don't think they entered the ball until they really expected enemy planes since the gunner was going to sitting in a position that would get uncomfortable very quickly. The other problem with the ball turret is that it had to be rotated so that the hatch was aligned just so for the gunner to get in or out. There were cases were the turret got damaged and could not rotate so the gunner was stuck in the ball. Worse, there was at least one plane where this happened and the landing gear could not be lowered so the plan was going to land on its belly...

The crew and ball gunner had a long time to think about that landing....

I think at the start of the European missions it too 25 to get home. Not many men, much less an entire crew, made it to 25 missions. As the war progressed and the Luftwaffe was degraded, US loses went down and the maximum missions went from 25, 30 and I think 35 towards the end of the war in Europe. If you did not have enough points when Germany was defeated, you got to look forward to more missions in the Pacific.

Later,
Dan

[IdoraKeeper]

All of this talk about buzzing! Some folks are apparently morally outraged. Professionals keep such things to a dull roar. Not desirable to get called in for a carpet dance for too much fun on your days off. Still, if a person survives their period of youthful exuberance there are good memories. The pilot is the real safety factor in aviation.
Speaking of safety, and anchors........how bout those rotor heads, beating the air into submission? Anchors, cats, monos....just sayin!

[Adodero]

Originally Posted by IdoraKeeper

All of this talk about buzzing! Some folks are apparently morally outraged. Professionals keep such things to a dull roar

We should be holding each other accountable. If someone is doing something dumb, they should be called out.

The saddest thing I read on an NTSB report is when friends (mainly, other pilots) are consulted about the accident pilot and they unanimously agree that the pilot was an accident waiting to happen. We all make bad decisions here and there, some of us walk away and others do not, but it certainly helps when you have a community that polices itself and is bold enough to call out unnecessarily dangerous activity enough for you to take notice. I'm glad people did it for me.

In one particularly sad case that stuck in my mind, 5 passengers were killed when the pilot tried to do a barrel roll in a fully loaded Baron. When they interviewed others at the airport, the general consensus was that he was an accident waiting to happen. It also turns out he had tried to do it before with other pilots in the aircraft, but they took control of the airplane and brought him to his senses, temporarily anyway. I'm not sure a dull roar would have been appropriate.

[Ron Rico]

Originally Posted by Adventurebound

May I ask you sir how you 'plan' to avoid power lines and other obstructions at the low altitude you have flown at. Do you have a plan for possible engine failure and the type of terrain you are prepared to do a forced landing.

Since you've been flying since '78, maybe you're be a little rusty on your regs and operating procedures, and probably have never been part of a well planned and properly executed flight. But, here's the quick overview of what we do ....

Each flight begins with a briefing.. review of what we are going to do, whether formation or low level. The Sectionals (remember those?) and road maps are studied for the proposed route, including elevations, obstructions, towers, power lines, etc. If low level, will the flight take place over private property, houses, buildings etc, and how do we avoid those areas *note - go back and read 91.119....a boat would be not be considered a congested area. The route must be previously scouted, either from the ground or from the air (and by air, I mean at a safe altitude). Emergency procedures are reviewed, as are altitudes, airspeeds, radio frequencies, power setting, etc. The flight/route is completely reviewed from engine start to engine stop. All GIBs are required to be part of the brief. Their responsibilities, if any other than look for traffic, look for obstacles, call out any percieved danger, are discussed. Once the flight is completed, and prior to anything else, there is a comprehensive debrief, and the flight is once again completely reviewed, start to finish. If you don't check your ego at the door, the debrief can sometimes be uncomfortable for some, because any mistakes, departure from the plan and profile or anything else concerning the flight are dissected. Any GIBs get to have their input as well.

That said, I don't fly aircraft I'm not intimitaly familiar with. I'm an A&P and an AI, so I know my own airplanes inside and out. The other aircraft that I fly, I also maintain. And I don't fly with guys I don't know and am not willing to trust my life to. And I'm not going to do anything my GIBs are uncomfortable with. I'm not hopping in a rented 172 to drive to breakfast.

I'm not saying it's not dangerous either. But so is driving to Denny's for breakfast. And you run a higher risk of being hurt driving to Denny's.

Obviously, your mind is already made up WRT low level and/or formation flying, and you're misinformed about a lot of it. The few bad apples out there give everyone a bad name, and adamant sensationalistic statements like you make don't help the guys that try and do it right and do it safely. Not unlike sailors/boaters. I would expect someday, after you've become the expert sailor, to see you on another forum saying "I came here to get away from idiot sailors". I think you'll find that there's a lot of pilots on this forum who sail, and a lot of sailors here who are pilots. And then of course, there's that contingency of folks that have a pilots license that just steer a plane through the sky. So you may not be able to get away from them here.

Anyway, I'm done with the the educating part. Good luck in your sailing endeavours, relax and enjoy life.

73's

[zboss]

When we first picked up a mooring ball here in St. Augustine I thought it was really cool that both a Navy helicopter and a Coast Guard copter flew about 50 feet over my mast. I thought "wow, he's gonna land on the boat!!!" (not really - just sayin').

However, now that they have flown over me 6 times a day at the same height (3 out 3 in) for a month now, we are getting kind of annoyed

We did have a Zero fly right past the boat (maybe even below mast level) back in January.

[Adventurebound]

Originally Posted by Ron Rico

Since you've been flying since '78, maybe you're be a little rusty on your regs and operating procedures, and probably have never been part of a well planned and properly executed flight. But, here's the quick overview of what we do ....

Each flight begins with a briefing.. review of what we are going to do, whether formation or low level. The Sectionals (remember those?) and road maps are studied for the proposed route, including elevations, obstructions, towers, power lines, etc. If low level, will the flight take place over private property, houses, buildings etc, and how do we avoid those areas *note - go back and read 91.119....a boat would be not be considered a congested area. The route must be previously scouted, either from the ground or from the air (and by air, I mean at a safe altitude). Emergency procedures are reviewed, as are altitudes, airspeeds, radio frequencies, power setting, etc. The flight/route is completely reviewed from engine start to engine stop. All GIBs are required to be part of the brief. Their responsibilities, if any other than look for traffic, look for obstacles, call out any percieved danger, are discussed. Once the flight is completed, and prior to anything else, there is a comprehensive debrief, and the flight is once again completely reviewed, start to finish. If you don't check your ego at the door, the debrief can sometimes be uncomfortable for some, because any mistakes, departure from the plan and profile or anything else concerning the flight are dissected. Any GIBs get to have their input as well.

That said, I don't fly aircraft I'm not intimitaly familiar with. I'm an A&P and an AI, so I know my own airplanes inside and out. The other aircraft that I fly, I also maintain. And I don't fly with guys I don't know and am not willing to trust my life to. And I'm not going to do anything my GIBs are uncomfortable with. I'm not hopping in a rented 172 to drive to breakfast.

I'm not saying it's not dangerous either. But so is driving to Denny's for breakfast. And you run a higher risk of being hurt driving to Denny's.

Obviously, your mind is already made up WRT low level and/or formation flying, and you're misinformed about a lot of it. The few bad apples out there give everyone a bad name, and adamant sensationalistic statements like you make don't help the guys that try and do it right and do it safely. Not unlike sailors/boaters. I would expect someday, after you've become the expert sailor, to see you on another forum saying "I came here to get away from idiot sailors". I think you'll find that there's a lot of pilots on this forum who sail, and a lot of sailors here who are pilots. And then of course, there's that contingency of folks that have a pilots license that just steer a plane through the sky. So you may not be able to get away from them here.

Anyway, I'm done with the the educating part. Good luck in your sailing endeavours, relax and enjoy life.

73's

Inbetween your gibes [which won't score you any points] you have presented general flight plan considerations which I would do on any flight, except for previous scouting. Just what height agl are you describing your flight planning? I am talking about the 'pilots' who are smelling the flowers as they are racing between cliffs, riverbanks, and any other crevice thay can fit their plane in. Their flight planning starts, not at the briefing room, but about 5 seconds before scraping the next hill or strafing the next boat. Who cares if the regulations allow you to fly near sea level on top of a boat. If you do it you qualify as one of those idiot pilots I stay away from. The premise of your arguement is if the regulations allow you to do something stupid, then it's ok to do it. That is a pilot who, by your own definition, "just steers the plane through the sky.

There are countless issues regarding breached safety committed even by high hour pilots - overloading, loss of control, poor weather evaluation. I'll debate any issue and I'll let you know if you 'educated' me.

[model 10]

Originally Posted by Adventurebound

Inbetween your gibes [which won't score you any points] you have presented general flight plan considerations which I would do on any flight, except for previous scouting. Just what height agl are you describing your flight planning? I am talking about the 'pilots' who are smelling the flowers as they are racing between cliffs, riverbanks, and any other crevice thay can fit their plane in. Their flight planning starts, not at the briefing room, but about 5 seconds before scraping the next hill or strafing the next boat. Who cares if the regulations allow you to fly near sea level on top of a boat. If you do it you qualify as one of those idiot pilots I stay away from. The premise of your arguement is if the regulations allow you to do something stupid, then it's ok to do it. That is a pilot who, by your own definition, "just steers the plane through the sky.

There are countless issues regarding breached safety committed even by high hour pilots - overloading, loss of control, poor weather evaluation. I'll debate any issue and I'll let you know if you 'educated' me.

Must say, you don't sound like a pilot or at best one who has flown much. If that is so, why are you talking?

[Adventurebound]

Originally Posted by Guy

Must say, you don't sound like a pilot or at best one who has flown much. If that is so, why are you talking?

I'll debate anything flying with you-just say something intelligent and we're off.

[pbiJim]

Laminar flow wings, an Allison or a Merlin under the hood, a 4 blade prop, I'm pretty fond of the old P-51. I want to get some stick time in one of those someday.