All things to all men?
(Overheard at general communications staff meeting for Megaplanes)
Top PR guru: "Okay, listen up people. So the top stories today are one from our commercial division about improving access on the new Dreamy Sleepyliner for disabled people, and the other is from our 'things that make a really big bang' division about the successful tests of the Massive Ordnance 'Bunker Buster' mega bomb."
Bottom PR guru: "Erso what does that mean for our corporate message?"
Top PR: "What do you mean?"
Bottom PR: "Well, are we bringing people together, or blowing them apart?"
Test pilot round-up
Ever considered the everyday risks of being a test pilot? You know - life on the edge, engine failures at supersonic speed, flight controls that can turn bad on you in a split second, instant danger at every turn.
Think again. Here's the "unique risks of airship flight testing" according to the brave chaps from the US Navy who are reviving the lost art for the service after almost 50 years of neglect.
1. Dual engine failure - you're likely to go UP, not down.
2. Emergency egress - it won't be a 4ft drop, more like 40ft.
3. Static light landing - you can "stall" and "fall up" due to loss of negative lift.
And this is the best:
4. Risk of small arms fire - conversations with all the big US blimp operators has apparently revealed that virtually all post cross-country flight inspections in the USA are guaranteed to reveal damage from gunfire!). Your Uncle recalls the not-so-urban myth about the stories of Megaplanes fuselages arriving in Seattle from their long rail journey across the Great Plains from Wichita complete with the odd gunshot wound and even an arrow or two!
- Presenter mixing metaphors under pressure: "It doesn't take a rocket surgeon."
- LockMart HeedTin top F-35 steely-eyed test jock Jon Beesley on the ups and downs of JSF flight tests:
"Traditionally we had the auxiliary power unit, environmental control system and emergency power units, and we had problems with all three. So we integrated them into one system called the Integrated Power Pack so we'd just end up having all those problems with that one!"
"And one of the areas was evaluating the effects of fist-on-glass - sorry, finger-on-glass control."
And on pointing out the potential crosswind issues of the large single nose gear door:
"I tried to fight it, and got thanked for my interest in aviation."
Yuck speak (series of 1,000,000)
Test article deformed excessively = broke
Read Flight from 1956 or read Uncle Roger's web log.
Source: Flight International
