For those who like Aircraft pictures

[Barry Ten]

On 04/03/2024 at 23:08, SHMD said:

 

17:40 This time, though, something more interesting was on the apron - an Airbus Beluga. (I call them Guppys for some reason!)

 

 

Like me you probably remember the Pregnant Guppy and Super Guppy aircraft which performed a similar role to the Beluga?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Spacelines_Super_Guppy

 

I've seen the Beluga flying north over Aberdare a few years ago. Pretty hard to mistake for anything else, even at altitude.

[jjb1970]

Finally had a nice day yesterday after a long run of cloudy and overcast weather so got the camera out. Some SQ departures.

 

[jjb1970]

Some other departures.

 

[298]

Finally, my own photo of OneAir's G-UNET, currently at Birmingham.

 

[298]

...managed to see it from home, through a gap in the clouds when it departed just after 16.00

 

This plane-spotting lark is really difficult - I thought railtours were bad for running late, but this was far worse. 

 

I'm not sure what was rare and what wasn't for Birmingham, although I thought this Virgin A350 G-VPRD might be? The pilot didn't know where to go and had to follow a ground vehicle...

 

 

 

[JZ]

[MPR]

I've been scanning some old negatives - from IAT Fairford 1989

 

 

 

Edited March 23 by MPR

[J. S. Bach]

2 hours ago, MPR said:

I've been scanning some old negatives - from IAT Fairford 1989

 

I once saw one of those coming in for a landing years ago when driving on I-10 in Arizona and did not think to grab a quick photo with the Instamatic camera on the seat next to me.

 

 

Edited March 22 by J. S. Bach
To edit the post

[Johann Marsbar]

Travis AFB KC-10 farewell event as part of the Wings over Solano Airshow the weekend before last......

 

 

 

 

Absolute shambles to get into the place having travelled there from Oakland on Amtrak to Fairfield-Vacaville station to catch the advertised free bus every 15 mins to the base. Only thing was, there appeared to be 2 buses in use, which got caught up in all the traffic.  A bus appeared after 45 mins wait, with a 15 min run into the base, where you then joined a slow moving queue of people that took 90 mins to go through a security checkpoint ! (whilst the flying displays were in progress)

Just ended up having 75 mins at the show before making an early exit for an earlier train. Caught a bus straight away, but that appeared to be the only bus on the service by that stage as It hadn't reappeared at the station by the time my train left 50 mins later........

There were still long lines of slow moving traffic trying to get into the show at the time I left on the bus (14.30) with only the Blue Angels left to display in the show. I could see their C130 perform from the station platform, but I never saw them take off by the time my train left just after 15.30 ! (They were due to display at 15.00)

[Johann Marsbar]

Some of the other equipment on display at the Travis AFB show....

 

 

 

 

 

[MJI]

On 03/03/2024 at 15:54, rob D2 said:

It would seem the economics of Ejets doesn’t always work . Flybe got some awful lease terms and it was part of their issues … airlines suddenly get over excited about pure jets 

They used to have BAe 146

 

On 03/03/2024 at 18:59, Jeff Smith said:

You mean of course turbofans - pure jets, ie non- by-pass airliners were banned many years ago.....there's still a few very old military aircraft with them though!

How come they are banned?

[Lochgorm]

19 minutes ago, MJI said:

 

 

How come they are banned?

Noise Dear Boy, noise. RAF VC10 Biggin Hill 2010 - Incredible takeoff & Display! Unique footage! (youtube.com)

[Jeff Smith]

And VC10s had low by-pass turbofans......about 1:1 maybe, ie half the air goes through the gas turbine, the other half just through the fan and around the outside to join with the high temperature jet efflux in an effort to quieten it.  With the big fans about 80-90% of the air (cold) goes through the fan to provide the thrust and quieten the much smaller hot efflux.

[jjb1970]

I remember when the BAe146 was marketed as the whisper jet. 

[KeithMacdonald]

Any ideas what happened to the VC10 at Cornwall Air Musuem?

 

Other VC10;s here:

https://vc10.net/index2.html

[jjb1970]

A favourite airframe/livery combo of mine, even if it is crazily sensitive to light.

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

14 hours ago, MJI said:

……How come they are banned?

 

13 hours ago, Lochgorm said:

Noise Dear Boy, noise. …….

 

13 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

And VC10s had low by-pass turbofans......

 

Just not noise.

High fuel consumption.

The RR Conway on the VC10, SVC10 and a relatively small number of B707’s (-420 series) and DC8’s (-40 series), was one of the early low bypass turbofan jet engines.

The most numerous, popular and successful (by far) on multi- engine long range airliners, was the P&W JT3D (e.g. B707 B&C series, B720B, DC8 -50 & 60series)

 

“Pure Jets” refers to the earlier engined airliners, preceding these, without bypass fans.

These include the very earliest (late 1950’s) B707, B720 & DC8 examples, some of which were refitted with Turbofans in the early/mid 1960’s, but most continued in service with their original engine types until the 1973 fuel crisis hit and their relatively much higher fuel costs saw mass retirements in short order.

 

Other “pure jet” airliners that were phased out in the 1970’s  for the same reason, included the Convair 880 and the RR Avon powered Caravelle 3 and the last of the Comet 4 series.

 

.

 

Edited March 28 by Ron Ron Ron

[MJI]

I do like airliners with afterburners.

 

Been in a few 146s.

 

Been in a comet at 3 months old.

Edited March 28 by MJI

[Jeff Smith]

The only airliner with afterburners (reheat) was Concorde.

 

And of course the Russian version........

Edited March 28 by Jeff Smith
Addition

[jjb1970]

For many years Private Eye magazine had something of a campaign against the BAe146, claiming the types fed toxic chemicals from engine oil into the cabin. I have no idea whether their claims were accurate, accurate but overstated or rubbish. Experience with that magazine is they're often right but just as often wrong (they were cheerleaders for alleged links between autism and the MMR vaccine for many years as an example of them being wrong).

[rob D2]

Aerotoxic poisoning is a real thing, I haven’t followed it recently but iirc a number of estates of deceased BA pilots were bringing cases against airlines and manufacturers .

 

Aircraft use bleed air for air con, ie air taken off the engine and filtered is then fed into the cabin for pressurisation and heating . If there is a seal problem engine oil vapour can leak in . You don’t want to be breathing either . The 146 and 757 were big on this - I worked on both and had fume incidents on both. In the latter we ended up having blood tests to check what we were exposed to 

[Kris]

Well this is nearly an aircraft. Currently doing some form of testing near Harlech. It’s a drone for the Royal Navy apparently designed to carry 100kg 1000km.  

[rob D2]

4 hours ago, Kris said:

Well this is nearly an aircraft. Currently doing some form of testing near Harlech. It’s a drone for the Royal Navy apparently designed to carry 100kg 1000km.  

Be hard to shoot down as it’s very small ;)

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, Kris said:

Well this is nearly an aircraft. Currently doing some form of testing near Harlech. It’s a drone for the Royal Navy apparently designed to carry 100kg 1000km.  

It is, indubitably, an aircraft.

 

2 hours ago, rob D2 said:

Be hard to shoot down as it’s very small ;)

It's quite far away...

[Flanged Wheel]

Looks like one of these…

 

https://defence-blog.com/royal-navy-tests-aerial-logistics-drone-on-aircraft-carrier/?amp