The heroic, but ultimately futile, attempts by the avian community to fight back against powered intruders continue. In this terrible scene a single white bird, cautiously identified by somebody-or-other as a pelican, loses (just) a bill-to-radome skirmish with an Embraer EMB-145 of Expressjet / Continental Express at Salt Lake City.

More seriously, birdstrikes remain firmly in the "accident waiting to happen" category. We have been very lucky so far but all the evidence is that the threat is increasing.

Courtesy of the always entertaining "Sully" Sulako comes this cockpit video of his colleague flying their Citation into New York Newark through lots of clag and rain. The neat thing about it is that it is in the high-definition format now supported on Youtube. Lots of flightsim stuff around, but this is the real thing. So, as he suggests, blow it up to full screen and select 720p and enjoy. It's a nice example of challenging but routine line flying in the corporate world.

It's been quite an evening - in a good way and a not so good way. The good stuff first: so I'm on my regular biweekly commute home from a storm-threatened Madrid to London Gatwick. We are actually lined up on the runway, and I notice that the windsock is lined up in exactly the opposite direction, which is nice, but looking as if it may be uprooted any moment which is not so nice. We sit for a good while and the captain announces that the wind is out of limit for take-off - which is pretty blowy.

Some of you may remember an incident in May last year in which a British Airways Boeing 747-400 suffered an uncommanded slat-retraction on rotation at Johannesburg. I suggested that the aviating skills displayed by the crew were worthy of note.

Well, now the detailed South African CAA incident report is available and it confirms that it was every bit as hairy as it sounds and just how well the crew performed. A slightly complicated read, but worth the effort.

The earlier posts (which tell the tale rather more simply) are here and here.

Everyday tale of life in flight-test. I wonder who was first to notice?

IDENTIFICATION
  Regis#: UNK        Make/Model: B-78      Description: B 787 DREAMLINER
  Date: 05/07/2010     Time: 2245

  Event Type: Incident   Highest Injury: None     Mid Air: N    Missing: N
  Damage: Minor

LOCATION
  City: SEATTLE   State: WA   Country: US

DESCRIPTION
  AIRCRAFT LOST TAIL SENSOR CONE UPON LANDING, BOEING FIELD, SEATTLE, WA

INJURY DATA      Total Fatal:   0
                 # Crew:   2     Fat:   0     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:    
                 # Pass:   0     Fat:   0     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:    
                 # Grnd:         Fat:   0     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:    

WEATHER: UNKNOWN

OTHER DATA
  Activity: Other      Phase: Landing      Operation: OTHER


  FAA FSDO: SEATTLE, WA  (NM01)                   Entry date: 05/10/2010 

 

And here´s a trailing cone that hasn´t fallen off. The idea of this work

was to work out what length of line would be stable. The pressure sensor

is the rigid bar highlighted towards the end of the movie - the cone

is just to keep the whole thing stable.

Trailing-Cone-Stability.wmv

And finally, since the whole fascinating question of trailing cones has

probably never been so thoroughly explored on a blog before, here´s a picture

by Matt Cawby of Seattle of a 787 trailing cone before flight.

View image 

Opinions in the pilot community will doubtless be divided over the conduct of this American Airlines Boeing 767 captain who doesn't like the runway he's been given and doesn't care who knows it. To the point of unilaterally switching runways at JFK, declaring an emergency, and carrying on his own sweet way. Opinions in the ATC community may be less divided.

KJFK_EMERG.mp3

I'm assuming this was a nice clear day and he could see where he was going.

Recording courtesy of LiveATC.net

How about "an airshow"? Which makes you wonder how many people will turn up for the actual Victory Day parade in Moscow in four days time after getting rather more than a sneak preview of the aerial component yesterday. All the tank freaks I suppose.

Having set off down the road of chronicling the recent achievements of female pilots in the world's military aerobatic teams, I guess I'm now stuck with it. You'll recall how the Red Arrows and Patrouille de France both announced their first female pilots last year, and then the Patrouille confirmed the appointment of a female leader this year.

Well, now it turns out that Canada's Snowbirds have gone the same route. So congratulations to Lt Col Maryse Carmichael who is their new commander. (Just need some new aircraft now and all will be well.)

Canadian readers may point out that this was announced in January. OK, sort of. In a highly successful attempt to bury the good news, Canada's Department of National Defence announced the news thus: Canadian Forces Snowbirds to gain leadership depth. I guess it meant something to somebody.

...zey grurr urp in zee murst deelartful way...and once in a while they become leader of one of the world's premier jet aerobatic teams.

So chapeaux off to Commandant Virginie Guyot, first featured in this blog just about a year ago, and who is this year leading the Patrouille de France.

My story of the volcano is just one of a gzillion of course - but educational for travellers. You can follow the saga of what happened to my wife and I on Facebook. In brief, we just failed to get out of Madrid on Thursday night as our flights (him on business on Easyjet, her on holiday on Ryanair - long story) were in the first wave of cancellations. What happened next was interesting.