from the South Bay
The L-1011 has mostly disappeared from the airways but is enjoying a burst of nostalgic appreciation. Here are some history lessons and some technology lessons, at multiple levels of detail.
Youtube Channel: Mustard
Youtube Channel: The British Library
Youtube Channel: AgentJayZ
Leave it to the Swiss to breathe new life into the airshow. First, they don’t call it that. It’s an Air Force practice open to that portion of the public willing to climb to ~7500 feet to watch planes and helicopters fly through a mountain range, firing live ammunition at targets placed on the rock walls. They’ve taken an event popular all over the world and Schweizenated it in their own particular … idiom.
Here is the Patrouille Suisse flight demonstration team in action from the recently concluded AXALP 2017. It’s a 360-degree video. Click and drag on the screen to see all angles. I don’t know how they did it but it is impressive.
Youtube Channel: Blick
Stan Jones gets a ride with the Blue Angels and we get to tag along, thanks to his cameras. Things start moving around 5 minutes into this nearly hourlong video.
Via the Stan Jones Youtube Channel
Photo: D. Ramey Logan – Wikimedia Commons
As a teenager, I was privileged to see him fly his Shrike Aero Commander at a Northern California airshow. As an adult, I got to see him at an event in his honor at Torrance Airport. Robert Hoover, the pilot’s pilot and long-time South Bay resident, passed away today in Torrance at age 94. Rest in Peace, Sir.
Terrific full-length video from Air-Clips.com
I got a copy of the SR-71 Pilot’s Manual as soon as it became available in the early 1990s. It’s a throwback to the days of slide rules and handmade graphics and utterly fascinating. There is a lot of material on the Pratt and Whitney J-58 engine and the Lockheed inlets that powered the Blackbird beyond Mach 3 yet I have never been able to fully understand why and how that system did what it did. Thankfully, Blackbird enthusiast Tech Adams explains it all in his delightful video – The Mighty J58 – The SR-71’s Secret Powerhouse.
Not too many U.S. airports get to see the Antonov AN-124. One day maybe the AN-225 will grace us with a visit.
Berkeley biologists put hummingbirds in a wind tunnel with fascinating results.
LAX comings and goings in 2014 as only the mysterious SpeedbirdHD can do it.
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson