This Date in Aviation History: May 30 - June 2

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 06/02/2020 at 12:35 • Filed to: wingspan, Planelopnik, TDIAH

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Welcome to This Date in Aviation History , getting of you caught up on milestones, important historical events and people in aviation from May 30 through June 2.

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May 30, 1958 – The first flight of the Douglas DC-8. By the end of WWII, Douglas Aircraft held a commanding position in the production of piston-powered airliners, a dominance that reached all the way back to the early 1930s with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (DC stands for Douglas Commercial). But even though WWII heralded the dawn of the jet age, Douglas saw no need to rush headlong into the new technology. The company was still well-placed in the airliner market with their extremely successful !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , its final piston airliner, was still in development and wouldn’t take its maiden flight until 1953. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! had produced the world’s first turbojet-powered airliner with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but a series of fatal crashes led airlines to shy away from jet airliners, even though the Comet crashes were traced to metal fatigue around its large, square windows and had nothing at all to do with its turbojet engines.

But by 1950, Douglas was feeling the heat from their primary competitor. Inspired by the success of their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bomber, Boeing had begun work on their own jet powered airliner, and rolled out the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (Dash 80) in 1954. Though it was originally designed for the US Air Force as the jet-powered !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! aerial refueler, the implications for the commercial airline industry were clear. Two years before the introduction of the Dash 80, Douglas had begun their own studies for the development of a four-engine jetliner, also hoping to compete for a lucrative defense contract. Though the company was ultimately left out of the tanker competition, Douglas moved ahead with their airliner design and announced the DC-8 in 1955. Following consultations with the airlines, they modified their prototype to allow for six-abreast seating and offered four different versions of the jetliner, each offering options for different engine or fuel loads. However, Douglas refused to offer the DC-8 in any other fuselage lengths, a decision that ultimately hampered sales when pitted against the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Despite the promise of the new jet airliner, airlines were still lukewarm to the idea, as turboprop airliners used less fuel and were quieter. It wasn’t until Pan Am announced that they would buy both the Boeing and the Douglas aircraft that airlines finally went all-in on turbojet airliners.

The DC-8 entered service with Delta Air Lines and United Airlines in 1959, though Douglas’ decision to limit production to a single fuselage size led the airlines also to purchase similar but more flexible offerings from Boeing, as well as !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who offered their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! jet airliner. It wasn’t until 1965 that Douglas finally offered a stretched DC-8, called the Super Sixty. The lengthened airliner now accommodated up to 269 passengers, a mark that was not surpassed until the arrival of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1970. And even though the 707 is by far the most well-known airliner of the era, Douglas (now !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! following the merger of the two companies in 1967) would have the last laugh. While nearly twice the number of 707s and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! variants were produced by Boeing, just 80 remained in service by 2002. The DC-8, however, which proved to be an excellent cargo aircraft after its passenger-carrying days were over, could boast 200 aircraft still in service. And by 2013, 36 DC-8s were still in service worldwide.

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(US Air Force)

June 1, 1939 – The first flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. Though WWI ended in 1918, the formal end of hostilities between Germany and the Allied Powers didn’t take place until the signing of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on June 28, 1919. The treaty, which in many ways made WWII inevitable, was particularly harsh on Germany, and one of its provisions forbade the manufacture or stockpile of chemical weapons, armored vehicles, tanks, and military aircraft. But with Adolf Hitler’s rise to uncontested leadership of Germany in 1933, the country chose to ignore the provisions of the treaty. Along with renewed production of weapons, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (Ministry of Aviation) began work to develop new military aircraft in an effort to rebuild Germany’s air force, the Luftwaffe.

In 1933, the Ministry held a competition to develop a new single-engine fighter. That competition was eventually won by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which went on to become the second-most highly produced warplane in history behind the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . But even as the 109 entered development and production, the Ministry indicated that it wanted a second fighter to complement the 109, since it was feared that, as good as the 109 was at the time, future foreign designs might soon outclass it. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the head of the design department at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , took on the task of designing the new fighter. But unlike most German fighter aircraft of its era that used inline engines, Tank chose the 14-cylinder twin-row !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! radial engine. Conventional wisdom in Europe at that time was that radial engines were too bulky for fighters, and that the size of the flat disk of opposing pistons at the front of the plane would create too much drag and slow the fighter down. But Tank had seen the success of American radial-engined aircraft and, based on that experience, he chose the radial not only for its power but for its relative ease of maintenance. As it turned out, pilots also appreciated that huge hunk of metal at the front of the fighter, as it afforded an extra measure of protection while attacking Allied bomber formations.

(US Library of Congress)

To keep the large radial engine cool, Tank initially fitted a vented spinner that covered the entire opening in the engine cowling, with cooling air introduced through a hole in the center of the spinner. This was eventually abandoned in favor of a more conventional spinner and a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! over the engine that accelerated air flow over the hot cylinders. Tank also sought to make the new fighter as rugged and simple as possible so that it could operate from rough, undeveloped airstrips and could easily be maintained in the field. To counter the problems that often arose from stretched cables that worked the control surfaces, Tank instead used a series of solid linkages that provided excellent control and longevity.

A captured Fw 190A whose pilot mistakenly landed in England in 1942 (Imperial War Museum)

The Würger (Shrike), as the Fw 190 was known, entered service with the Luftwaffe over the Western Front in August 1941. At first, Allied pilots were confused by the appearance of a radial-engined German fighter. But the 190 soon got their attention, as it proved superior to the British !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in all regimes of flight except for turning radius. And with superior firepower coming from its two 13mm MG 131 machine guns and two 20mm MG 151 cannons, the 190 soon clawed its way into air superiority over the British. It wasn’t until the RAF captured a 190 that they could analyze it and develop a version of the Spitfire, the Mk. IX, specifically to deal with the Würger . Though relatively evenly matched over Western Europe, Fw 190 pilots on the Eastern Front scored huge victories over less experienced Russian pilots, with German ace !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! claiming 267 victories, many of them coming at the controls of a 190.

Focke-Wulf Ta 152. Note the elongated fuselage, longer wings, and inverted V 12 engine to improve high altitude performance. (San Diego Air and Space Museum)

As Allied advances in fighter design continued, Focke-Wulf worked to stay ahead of, or at least on par with, Allied fighters. The D model was fitted with a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! V-12 engine in an effort to increase high-altitude performance, while a further development, the Ta 152, was fitted with a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! inverted V 12 and had a stretched fuselage and elongated wings. Though the updated fighters proved a match for the most modern Allied designs, both came too late in the war to have a bearing on the outcome. And even though attempts by Allied strategic bombers to eliminate German aircraft factories were relentless, production of the 190 continued throughout the war, and only ceased in 1945 with Germany’s surrender. By that time, over 20,000 of all types had been produced. Despite that huge production run, only one original airworthy Fw 190A exists, complete with its original BMW 801 engine, owned by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in Everett, Washington. That organization also owns the sole existing Fw 190D to have survived the war.  

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Short Takeoff

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(NASA)

May 30, 2020 – The manned launch of the SpaceX Crew Dragon. The launch of two NASA astronauts to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (ISS) atop a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! rocket marked the first time Americans had launched into space from the United States since the last !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! launch in 2011. NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley left the historic Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:22 PM EDT and then completed a successful autonomous docking with the ISS approximately 19 hours later. The astronauts then transferred to the ISS two hours later. They will spend four months on the station before returning to Earth in the Crew Dragon capsule and splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast. This was the final certification flight for !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to be allowed to shuttle crews to and from the ISS.

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(US Air Force)

May 30, 1972 – The first flight of the Northrop YA-9, the unsuccessful competitor to the Fairchild Republic YA-10 (the eventual !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ) for a dedicated close air support (CAS) aircraft. Both aircraft were designed around the 30mm !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! rotary cannon, though the Northrop prototype was armed with 20mm !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! gun as the GAU-8 was still under development at the time. While both designs showed promise, the YA-10 was selected after a fly-off between the two. Northrop built two prototypes, both of which were given to NASA for further flight testing after the competition. One of the prototypes is on display at March Field Air Museum, and the other awaits restoration at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

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(NASA)

May 30, 1971 – The launch of Mariner 9, an unmanned space probe launched by NASA to explore Mars and the first spacecraft to orbit another planet. Part of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Mariner 9 was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop an !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! rocket and reached Mars on November 14, 1971, beating similar Russian probes by less than a month. Mariner 9's primary mission was to map the Martian surface, and the spacecraft also included a radiometer to detect volcanic activity. Before deactivation on October 27, 1972, Mariner 9 returned 7,329 images of Mars, as well as important data on the composition of the Martian atmosphere. Mariner 9 remains in Mars orbit, and is expected to fall from orbit and burn up in the Martian atmosphere sometime in 2022.

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(US Navy)

May 30, 1948 – The first flight of the Martin P5M Marlin, a flying boat developed by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! as a maritime patrol aircraft based on the earlier !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Marlin was notable for its use of a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which raised the engines higher above the surface of the water to keep them clear of the ocean spray. Later production models were modified with a T-tail to place the elevators higher above the water as well, and anti-submarine warfare variants were fitted with a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (MAD) boom to detect submarines. The Marlin entered service in 1952 and saw action in the Vietnam War, performing the last flying boat maritime patrols carried out by the US Navy. The Marlin also served with the US Coast Guard and French Navy, and was retired in 1967 after production of 285 aircraft.

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May 30, 1942 – The first bombing mission of Operation Millennium. During WWII, the US and Britain were convinced of the effectiveness of heavy strategic bombing against German cities. Following the principles set forth by Italian general !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Allies believed that heavy bombardment of civilian centers would hasten the end of war by breaking the morale of the population. Gathering together every flyable bomber they could muster, including many obsolete aircraft, the RAF launched !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! against the German city of Cologne in the hopes of putting over 1,000 bombers over the target in a single mission. The streams of bombers flew over the city for 90 minutes and dropped 1,500 tons of bombs into the city center. More so-called 1,000 bomber raids were carried out against other cities, but strategic bombing never had the desired effect on civilian morale, and German factory production actually !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! steadily throughout the war despite the concentrated bombing effort.

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(US Library of Congress)

May 30, 1912 – The death of Wilbur Wright. Following the successful first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903, the Wright Brothers worked tirelessly to improve their machine, secure investors, and protect their intellectual property. They also had to establish the fact that they were first at powered flight against mounting skepticism at home and abroad. The brothers started the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1909, but Wilbur spent many of his final years shuttling between the US and Europe fighting to protect their patents. Perhaps due to the strain of those trips, Wilbur fell ill with typhoid fever in May 1912 and died soon after at the age of 45. Following Wilbur’s death, Orville took over the leadership of their company before selling his stake in 1915, and died in 1948 at the age of 76, having lived from the first flight into the supersonic age of aviation.

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(Tim Shaffer)

May 31, 1991 – The first flight of the Pilatus PC-12, a turboprop passenger and cargo aircraft designed primarily for corporate use and small regional airlines. The PC-12 is powered by a single !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turboprop that provides a cruising speed of 312 mph and a range of over 1,700 miles with a full complement of nine passengers. The PC-12 has proven to be a tremendous success, and is the best selling pressurized single-turbine aircraft in the world. Over 1,500 have been built, and the aircraft remains in production. The bulk of sales have been to the civilian market, though the PC-12 does serve government agencies and militaries around the world, including the US Air Force, where it is known as the U-28A.

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May 31, 1919 – US Navy Lt. Cdr. A. C. Read and his crew complete the first transatlantic flight . Three !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! flying boats—NC-1, NC-3 and NC-4—set out from the naval air station at Rockaway Beach, New York on May 8, 1919 with Plymouth, England as their ultimate destination. Flying first to Nova Scotia then Newfoundland, the three aircraft, with their six-man crews, turned across the Atlantic in the longest leg of the flight, 1,200 miles to the port of Horta in the Azores, roughly two-thirds of the way to Portugal. To aid in navigation and provide rescue if necessary, 21 US Navy ships were stationed along the line of flight, while a second line of ships marked the route from the Azores to Lisbon, Portugal. NC-3 got lost and set down off the Azores. Her crew was rescued, but the plane later sank. NC-1 also got separated and set down in the ocean, but rough seas prevented the crew from taking off. They finally sailed their aircraft under its own power into Horta on May 19. NC-4 was the only aircraft to arrive in Horta after 15 hours in the air, and finally made it to Plymouth on May 31 after 24 days and 4,000 miles. Roughly two weeks later, British aviators !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! completed the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic.

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(NASA)

June 1, 2011 – The Space Shuttle Endeavour lands at Kennedy Space Center after its final flight. Endeavour (OV-105) was the fifth and final Space Shuttle to be built, and took the place of the Shuttle !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! after the loss of that orbiter claimed the lives of seven astronauts. Named for both !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of Captain !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the Command Module of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Endeavour took its maiden flight on May 7, 1992 on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a mission to retrieve a communications satellite that had failed to reach its proper orbit. That mission marked the first time three astronauts walked in space at the same time. Over 19 years of service, Endeavour flew 25 missions, spent almost 300 days in space, completed 4,671 orbits of the Earth, and travelled 122,883,151 miles. Endeavour carried the first African-American woman astronaut, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , into space, and flew the first mission to service the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . After its retirement, Endeavour was placed on display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, California.

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June 1, 2009 – The crash of Air France Flight 447, a regularly scheduled flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (F-GZCP) took off on schedule and, due to the length of the flight, there were three pilots—one captain and two first officers—who would take shifts in the cockpit. While the captain was out of the cockpit, the airliner encountered icing conditions which fouled the pitot tubes that fed airspeed data to the flight computers and led to the auto-pilot and auto-thrust being automatically deactivated. The first officer initiated a series of rolling maneuvers, and an eventual unnecessary pitch up, which continued until the aircraft stalled and fell into the Atlantic Ocean. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! cited inconsistent speed readings from iced !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , failure of the crew to recognize the attitude of the airplane or to follow proper procedures for loss of auto-pilot, and lack of practical training for manual flight at high altitude. A transcript of the cockpit voice recorder during the final moments of the flight can be read !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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(US Air Force)

June 1, 1967 – Two Sikorsky HH-3E Jolly Green Giants complete the first non-stop transatlantic helicopter flight. In order to demonstrate the long range capabilities of the large Sikorsky rescue helicopters, two !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Jolly Green Giants, each with a five-man US Air Force crew, set out from Floyd Bennet Field in New York on May 31 and arrived 30 hours later at Le Bourget Airport in Paris. The flight followed a more northerly route than the one !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! had flown almost exactly 40 years earlier (Lindbergh had flown from Roosevelt Field) so that the helicopters could divert to Greenland or Iceland if necessary. To make the flight of more than 4,200 miles, the helicopters were refueled in the air nine times before arriving at the 1967 Paris Air Show, where they were greeted by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . After the historic flight, both helicopters returned to active duty, and both were lost in action during the Vietnam War.

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(US Air Force)

June 1, 1953 – The US Air Force Thunderbirds demonstration team is activated. The Thunderbirds trace their lineage back to the first Air Force demonstration squadron, the Acrojets, which flew the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , America’s first operational jet fighter, and was based at the USAF Fighter School at Williams AFB in Arizona. The Acrojets were disbanded in 1950 with the onset of the Korean War, but another demonstration team, the Skyblazers, entertained crowds in Europe from their base at Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base in Germany at about the same time. Two members of the Skyblazers went on to form the nucleus of the Thunderbirds, which was formed in 1953 as the 3600th Air Demonstration Team at Luke AFB in Arizona. The team takes its name from a legendary bird found in Native American mythology, and the current livery reflects traditional Native American imagery of the Thunderbird. The Thunderbirds’ first aircraft was the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and they have since transitioned through most frontline USAF fighters and currently perform in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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June 1, 1948 – The first flight of the Cessna 170, a single-engine general aviation aircraft that was produced by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from 1948-1956. The four-seat 170, an enlarged version of the popular Cessna 140, was powered by a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! air-cooled flat-six cylinder engine and featured a high wing and V struts. Development continued into the 1950s with the 305, which was modified with tandem seating and was flown extensively by the US Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps for reconnaissance and forward air control as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The 170 was later developed into the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which featured a tricycle landing gear and became history’s most successful aircraft. A total of 5,174 Cessna 170s were built.

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June 1, 1943 – British actor Leslie Howard is killed when his plane is shot down over the Bay of Biscay. Best known to American audiences for his role as Ashley Wilkes in the epic film !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (1939), !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was a passenger on KLM/BOAC Flight 777 from Bristol, UK to Lisbon, Portugal flown by a camouflaged !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (G-AGBB). During the nighttime flight, Howard’s aircraft was attacked and shot down by a flight of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that were on patrol over the bay. The same DC-3 had been attacked twice before but escaped. One theory for the attack is that German intelligence officers believed that !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was on the flight, and the airliner was targeted in an attempt to assassinate the British prime minister. Along with Howard, four KLM flight crew were killed, as well as 12 passengers, many of them British business executives or lower-level government employees, along with two or three children.

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(NASA)

June 2, 1998 – The launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on the final Shuttle mission to the Russian Mir space station. Begun in 1994, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was a joint effort between NASA and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (Roscosmos) in which Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts shared space on each other’s spacecraft to fly to and return from the Russian space station !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The goal of the program was to help the Americans gain experience on long-duration spaceflights in preparation for the transition to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (ISS). A total of 11 Space Shuttle missions were flown to Mir , and with the transfer of astronaut Andy Thomas to Discovery , it marked a total of 907 days in space logged by seven different astronauts. Discovery returned to Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 12.

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(Author unknown; US Army)

June 2, 1910 – Charles Rolls makes the first non-stop, double crossing of the English Channel.   !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! is best known to aviation and automotive history as one half of the famed Rolls-Royce engine manufacturing company, which he formed with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1906. But Rolls was also a pioneering aviator, first in ballooning then in airplanes, when he purchased of a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1909. Though he was not the first to cross the English Channel, Rolls was the first to make the trip across and then immediately back again. The return flight also marked the first eastward crossing of the Channel. Rolls was awarded the Gold Medal of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for the flight, but he also became the first Briton to die in an airplane accident when he crashed his Wright Flyer in 1910.

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Connecting Flights

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If you enjoy these Aviation History posts, please let me know in the comments. You can find more posts about aviation history, aviators, and aviation oddities at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn 06/02/2020 at 13:28

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Excellent, as always! Have you considered linking to videos? It may be that the live streams for the Dragon flights will remain online.

user314 > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/02/2020 at 13:38

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Provided NatGeo’s copy right bot doesn’t flag them. Again .

TheRealBicycleBuck > user314 06/02/2020 at 13:54

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I wasn’t aware that happened! Bots, really any form of automated system, are subject to errors. That’s why all of these systems need expert supervision and review. Any programmer who is arrogant enough to claim their system is perfect should be sent back to computer science 101.

facw > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/02/2020 at 14:04

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Given that there are no consequences for false positives (aside from a bit of bad publicity), a bot that occasionally flags too much stuff is probably working as intended .

LongbowMkII > ttyymmnn 06/02/2020 at 14:16

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It’s wild how much different modern jet engines  are, they’re like half the length and three times the diameter. 

ttyymmnn > LongbowMkII 06/02/2020 at 14:18

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High bypass turbofan FTW. Remarkably more efficient than the earlier turbojets.

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/aturbf.html

user314 > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/02/2020 at 14:21

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Yeah, I got nailed a couple four years ago over video of someone failing especially hard at pulling into a carwash that I sped up and set to “Yakkity Sax”. It is stupidly easy to flag something for copyright violation, and almost impossible to appeal.

user314 > LongbowMkII 06/02/2020 at 14:24

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“Meh, just swap one for the other and reprogram the autopilot to compensate. What could go wrong?” /Boeing

TheRealBicycleBuck > facw 06/02/2020 at 14:30

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“Given that there are no consequences for false positives....”

That’s part of the problem. Although the cost for correction in time and money for a company like SpaceX might be negligible , a small firm or independent person using a snippet of video under fair use might not have the resources to fight back. It’s even noted in the article that “the process for having them restored can still be challenging and esoteric.”

If it’s working as intended, then it’s another system that works to promote big business and squash the little guy. 

facw > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/02/2020 at 14:34

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Definitely. The Youtube takedown rules were setup to protect the interests of big rightsholders, not the little guy.

The DMCA takedown process at least has potential penalties for filing a false request (though they’ve basically never been used), but there really not much of a recourse for youtubers.

LongbowMkII > ttyymmnn 06/02/2020 at 14:56

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Working at the airport which is shared with the air national guard  you can definitely tell when the guard planes are taking off. 

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 06/02/2020 at 15:39

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I’ve read speculation that the Thunderbirds might eventually switch to the F-35, but I always thought they would have changed to the Raptor instead, because of all of its maneuvering capabilities. I sometimes feel like the F-22 is Am erica’s Forgotten Fighter.

ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove 06/02/2020 at 15:49

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I don’t see them switching to the F-35 any time soon. There is still a lot of life left in the F-16, and even tough the USAF isn’t purchasing them any more, they are still being produced for foreign buyers. I have no examples to back this up, but I wonder if the F-16 is fundamentally more maneuverable than the F-35, since some of the F-35's design is a stealthy compromise. As for the F-22, I don’t see that either. There just aren't enough of them. 

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 06/02/2020 at 15:57

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Well I think they should have made more of the F-22, but that’s another conversation; so yeah, I guess you wouldn’t want to take the off the front line. It still strikes me as funny that your demonstration squad would be demonstrating an out of production model.

I did read some remarks that a lot of the key features of the F-35 aren’t things you would see on display in flight demonstrations of the kind that they do. They are hidden in the avionics, data-linking capability, etc. And p ilots really like the handling of the F-16.

Anyway, I’m just  an uninformed lay person, but the 12 year old in me would still like to see a flight of F-22s in Thunderbirds livery.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > ttyymmnn 06/02/2020 at 15:59

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When is a window seat not a window seat? It seemed like at least a third of the time when you’re on a DC-8. I’ve been stuck staring  at a wall to many times on those damn airplanes, and I didn’t get to fly them very often. I believe the spacing was done for structural reasons, with the engineers being concerned about damage like on the Comet, and didn’t want to run the windows too close together.

The 40" spacing worked well for first class, with seats at a 40" pitch, but not so great for those in the cheap seats. They were nice big windows, and were great if you got one, but if you didn’t things got rather claustrophobic.

ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove 06/02/2020 at 16:07

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Here you go

Not too much to worry about flying an out-of-production plane like the F-16. I imagine there are a crap ton of spare parts out there.

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 06/02/2020 at 16:13

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Writing my congressman now.

I wasn’t worried about maintenance. I was just thinking of demonstrating with the best you have. 

ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove 06/02/2020 at 16:19

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Honestly, I doubt the majority of America would have any idea that they are flying older planes. At least the Blue Angels are transitioning to the Super Hornet soon. They have traditionally flown the oldest Hornets in the fleet.

user314 > Chariotoflove 06/02/2020 at 16:23

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It still strikes me as funny that your demonstration squad would be demonstrating an out of production model.

Blue Angels are in the same boat, flying the “Classic” Plastic Bugs instead of Super Hornets (at least for another year or two).

It’s interesting that neither team has been flying their respective services’ new hot fighter since they got rid of the F-4. T he F-14 wasn’t actually all that maneuverable , and the F-15 is too expensive and lorge to be a formation flyer, so it’s not surprising that they chose smaller, more nimble aircraft. Reversing that thinking, for the F-22 at least, seems impractical.

That said, six F-22s, painted in T-Bird colors and doing their routine? I don’t think I’d be able to walk after a show li ke that...

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 06/02/2020 at 18:01

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I kinda wondered at that too.

Chariotoflove > user314 06/02/2020 at 18:05

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I know I wouldn’t. ;)

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > ttyymmnn 06/02/2020 at 21:13

1

super hornet is 7k lbs heavier, so I can’t see that being helpful when doing subsonic ma ne uvers.