The sky-high aircraft and aviation thread

There is only 2 airworthy ones left too..... :c

RIP. But also: who approved the flight plans?

The official reveal of the B-21 by the USAF

The last Boeing 747 has rolled off the assembly line. (NPR)

I didn't know they were still being made until now.

The B-21 Nukes The DoD Budget.

• US Army makes largest helicopter award in 40 years -defensenews.com

Tl;dr - Bell’s V-280 Valor, a tiltrotor aircraft, vs. Sikorsky and Boeing’s Defiant X - the Valor won. This is an enormously large contract to replace ~2,000 UH-60 Blackhawk and ~1,2000 AH-64 Apache helicopter across the Army fleet. While the contest has been settled (the article admits there may be a protest), the engines for the new aircraft are delayed due to supply chain issues.

• A Reality Check On The Army Picking V-280 Valor Over SB>1 Defiant -thedrive.com

Tl;dr - This article tries to put the breaks on the panic that the V-280 Valor is V-22 Osprey II Electric Boogaloo. The article is worth a read on the pros and cons of each aircraft that competed but BLUF^note Bottom Line Up Front - we don't have enough information as to why the Army went the way they did, more will follow. The V-22 is actually flying safely now, but that's beside the point.

• The king is dead: Why would America want to retire the F-22? - taskandpurpose.com

Tl;dr - The reasons why the F-22 may be headed to the boneyard. Article is worth a read. The money quote:

Edited by TairaMai on Dec 10th 2022 at 7:33:27 AM

A Twitter video from Houston Air Watch was just published showing an F-35 crashing during a vertical landing procedure. The aircraft appears to either lose throttle control or have a ducting failure. When it hard-lands on its nosegear, the gear fails and the pilot ejects in their zero-zero seat.

A ROKAF KA-1 light attack aircraft crashed in Hoengseong county, in the Northeast of South Korea. The two pilots ejected safely, and there was no reported damage to civilian property.

Anyone knows Curtiss-Wright J2 Fury? Recently I remembered some old flight simulator dubbed Crimson Skies and said aircraft in there was toting 8 cannons instead of 5. Was that a case of Just Plane Wrong or did this fighter have a modification with 8 guns?

You're mixing up a couple of aircraft. In Real Life, there was a naval fighter known as the North American FJ-2 Fury, which was a variant of the F-86 Sabre (notable differences included folding wings and a longer nose landing gear strut). Crimson Skies is an alternate-history flight sim featuring lots of fictional aircraft, to include the Curtiss-Wright J2 Fury, which appears to be of no relation to the Real Life jet fighter.

A quick Wiki suggests the typical armament for the FJ-2 was four 20mm cannons (the Sabre, meanwhile most famously carried six Ma Deuce machine guns mounted in the nose)

Edited by AFP on Feb 28th 2023 at 1:18:08 AM

To folks who are interested in propfans (aka unducted turbofans): the European Commission's Clean Sky project is partnering with the European aviation industry for to develop a range of clean aviation tech. One of their ongoing programs is OFELIA (Open Fan for Environmental Low Impact of Aviation), which aims for a propfan design that could cut fuel consumption and carbon emission by 20% compared to the turbofans employed by today's narrow-body airliners. SAFRAN will coordinate the development of the tech demonstrator, in collaboration with 26 industry partners.

The demonstrator in question.

Edited by AngelusNox on Apr 30th 2023 at 12:58:15 PM

Wouldn’t it just be simpler and/or smarter to simply build turboprops or jet engines that run off hydrogen gas or hydrogen fuel cells?

The only exhaust from those is straight water. And it’s an already invented technology. Just have to refine designs and prepare infrastructure.

Edited by MajorTom on May 1st 2023 at 3:49:08 AM

Hydrogen storage is pretty tricky and seeping hydrogen gas can do nasty things to the metal components of aircraft. Also water in the stratosphere is not an insignificant pollutant.

A passenger on an Asiana Airlines flight opened the emergency exit in midair, causing six people to be treated for issues with breathing. Witnesses said that he said "It's past the scheduled arrival time and why aren't we there yet?" before opening the door.

Edited by minseok42 on May 26th 2023 at 12:18:36 PM

Just out of curiosity, what's the largest/fastest battery-powered aircraft that could theoretically be built, assuming there aren't any major breakthroughs in energy density on the horizon?

B-21 Raider’s First Flight: What We Learned

The B-21's first flight — a massive milestone for Northrop Grumman and the USAF — provides us with totally new looks at the world's most advanced flying machine. Here are some key takeaways from what is really the Raider's first full unveiling.

Just watched Devotion, and can highly recommend it. About Naval Aviators in the Korean War, including the first black naval aviator, Jesse Brown. Lots of Cool Planes to be found as well.

Edited by AFP on Dec 9th 2023 at 8:51:53 AM

A fatal accident occurred last night at Tokyo Haneda Airport. A Japan Airlines A350 touching down on runway 34R struck a Japanese Coast Guard Dash-8 that had entered the runway. On fire, the A350 came to a stop further down the runway. All of its 379 passengers and crew managed to evacuate before the aircraft was consumed by flames, with some reported injuries. Five of the six occupants of the Dash-8 were killed; the pilot survived with injuries. It was carrying earthquake relief aid.

Dramatic video of the accident went viral on the Internet almost immediately afterwards. Reuters story

Released audio from the ATC frequency is difficult to understand, but initial reporting suggests that the A350 had clearance to land and the Dash-8 was instructed to hold on the taxiway. Major airports are supposed to have technology to warn pilots of runway incursions so conflicting aircraft can abort takeoffs and landings, but there may not have been sufficient time to react.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 2nd 2024 at 3:28:02 PM

Over the weekend, an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 suffered an in-flight depressurization when the left over-wing plug door seal failed and the entire panel blew away from the aircraft. It was at 16,000 feet when this occurred, only ten minutes after departure from Portland, Oregon and bound for Ontario, California. The pilots were able to safely return to Portland.

Video of the accident has since gone viral on social media.

There were no serious injuries reported among the passengers, but this was potentially lucky. The seats nearest the door plug were unoccupied and suffered serious damage from the explosive decompression. A child seated in the same row reportedly had his shirt pulled off and suffered skin burns, and numerous items of luggage (including cell phones and other handheld devices) were blown away.

The 737 Max 9 was practically brand new, having been delivered from Boeing less than two months prior. The NTSB is of course investigating, in coordination with the FAA and other parties. The door has reportedly been found, and Alaska Airlines has grounded all of its Max 9s for inspections.

The Air Current reported today that United Airlines, which also operates the Max 9, found loose bolts on the plug doors of at least five aircraft in its own fleet, all of which were also recently delivered. These would have been found during maintenance inspections, but only of the C-check variety that occur after four to six thousand hours, far longer than these jets were in service.

Boeing is already in hot water over the 737 Max fleet, all of which were grounded after two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 revealed serious flaws in a newly added safety feature.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 8th 2024 at 5:03:55 AM

The 1000th F-35 has been built.

Lockheed Martin has hit a huge milestone in F-35 Joint Strike Fighter production. However, that accomplishment, while outstanding, is complicated by the ongoing saga surrounding the development and testing of Tech Refresh-3 (TR-3) hardware configuration. TR-3 underpins the F-35's future capabilities, known collectively as Block 4. Delays with TR-3 mean that F-35s are being parked and not delivered after they are constructed, waiting for these features. So is the case for the 1,000th F-35.

Meanwhile: Su-54 and J-20 NOTHING!

Edited by AngelusNox on Jan 10th 2024 at 8:33:01 AM

To be fair to the Su-54, the Russian military and Sukhoi production are presently preoccupied.

There’s no excuse for the Chinese unless the increasingly long running rumors of massive economic and demographic collapse of the past half plus decade have even the tiniest kernels of truth.

FAA Increasing Oversight of Boeing Production and Manufacturing

Looks like Boeing is going on a tighter leash following the incident in which an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 lost a door plug mid-flight.

Some might say this should have happened a long time ago, that Boeing should never have been allowed so much latitude in certifying its own aircraft for operations. We can look at the past all we want, but from now on the FAA is going to play hardball. Or so this statement says.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 13th 2024 at 10:24:55 AM

My grandfather (a Boeing company man who built some of the very planes I flew on) and my father are turning over in their graves.