If you have been an F/A-18 driver, you have probably heard her voice, if not seen her. Here she is, retiring from Boeing.
H/T to Spill.
Tag Archives: Aircraft
Shayne Meder and the Team finished the MH-60
The Best Looking Helo Paint Scheme Ever.
The Scorpions CAG Bird is finished.
Shayne Meder with the Scorpions CO, CDR Bobby Brown. I do believe the Skipper is very happy with the results.
Filed under Really Good Stuff
Warbird Restoration
There’s a great article about restoring old warbirds in this month’s issue of Air Force Magazine. Here are the lede grafs and a screen-shot of one of the article’s accompanying pics:
The scarcity of some World War II airframes today drives a small industry that can take what can only be described as airplane DNA and deliver a restored, flying aircraft. Restoration technology now makes it feasible to resurrect historic aircraft from little more than dented scraps of metal.
A striking example of this artistry is one Curtiss P-40C Tomahawk that survived a crash landing in 1942 to emerge as an award-winning restoration indistinguishable from the day it rolled off the Curtiss assembly line in 1941. The restoration shunned the iconic, but now ubiquitous, “Flying Tiger” shark’s mouth paint scheme to create instead a rugged-looking US Army Air Corps fighter of the type that rose to meet Japanese warplanes over Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
The Tomahawk’s odyssey began when it was earmarked for the British Royal Air Force and then transferred to the Soviet Union in December 1941. Identified with the RAF number AK295, it was technically a Tomahawk IIB—essentially equivalent to the USAAC’s P-40C.
The text version of the article is here but I recommend reading the PDF version for the photos.
Filed under Air Force, History, Other Stuff
From a fellow Lexican comes this from his blog RUMBEAR CHRONICLES. Thank you, Charles Mellor for this.
That is an awesome picture BTW!
September 28, 2013 · 11:54 pm
Dual 1,000th ‘Traps’ Achieved Aboard USS Nimitz
From the Navy Website. I am proud that one of these Aviators, Cmdr. Robert Loughran is the Commanding Officer of VFA-147, The Argonauts! I served in the Argonauts when they were VA-147 operating the venerable and dependable LTV A-7E Corsair II. The tradition remains. It is one of only three commands that I served in that still is in service……………………………………..
1,000 traps is a big deal. Bank on it. Ask some of our Lexicans that are Aviators and NFOs about that.
Filed under Airplanes, Carriers, Good Stuff, Naval Aviation, Plane Pr0n, Shipmates
The Beginning of the End
From the Usual USAF Source…
Final F-4 Regenerated for Use as Aerial Target
The final F-4 regenerated from storage in the Air Force’s aircraft boneyard at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz., earlier this month departed the base for Mojave, Calif., for conversion to a QF-4 target drone, announced base officials. This RF-4C airframe, dubbed “Last One,” left Davis-Monthan on April 17, states the base’s April 19 release. “It’s a great feeling to see such a magnificent aircraft fly again to serve the warfighter,” said Eddie Caro, the crew chief assigned to the aircraft since December 2012. BAE Systems will convert the platform into the QF-4 configuration in California and then deliver it to Tyndall AFB, Fla. This airframe arrived at Davis-Monthan for retirement in January 1989 and had been dormant until technicians with the base’s 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group last year began restoring it to flying status, according to the release. The Air Force is transitioning from the QF-4 to using QF-16s as its full-scale aerial targets. (Davis-Monthan report by Teresa Pittman) (See also Three-Hundredth QF-4 Delivered.)
I suppose goin’ down in flames is preferable to rusting away in The Boneyard… or, as Neil put it: “It’s better to burn out than to fade away…“
Cross-posted at EIP.
Filed under Plane Pr0n, USAF
March 2, 2013 · 3:25 pm
Helicopter Pron
National Guard UH-60A
Trying to take low light pictures of a helicopter that is supposed to be hard to see at night provides some interesting challenges…
Filed under Airplanes, Uncategorized
Something a bit different
AN-225 at Wichita Midcontinent Airport. The link is to an article in the April 3 edition of The Wichita Eagle. We lived in Wichita for eleven and one half years.
The daughter now works at AOPA in Wichita and even sent me pics of this puppy on the smart phone.
The world’s largest – and heaviest – airplane paid a visit to Wichita Monday.
The Antonov An-225, a strategic airlift cargo aircraft, landed at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport in the morning and spent the day there.
It was delivering components for Coffeyville Resources, an oil refinery in Coffeyville.
It was scheduled to take off Monday night for a 12-hour nonstop flight to Ukraine, where it is based.
Yingling Aviation was filling the six-engine plane with 65,000 gallons of fuel, said operations manager Steve LaLonde. It can hold 92,000 gallons.
The plane made three fuel stops to get to Wichita from Milan, Italy, where the refinery components were made.
It entered the United States in Bangor, Maine, LaLonde said.
The Antonov was designed by the Antonov Design Bureau in the 1980s to airlift the Energia rocket’s boosters and the Buran space shuttle for the Soviet space program.
The plane was completed in 1988. A second plane was partially completed.
Filed under Airplanes, Flying, History, Plane Pr0n
