Wednesday, July 16, 2014

A Little Airplane Pr0n

Cause I think it's beautiful.  Watch it full screen in HD.


Boeing posted a video of the actual flight at Farnborough, but it's a measly 360P resolution, and not as pretty as this practice film.  If you're watching any screen bigger than your phone, watch this one.

I said here before,
Put the better part of four years of your life into it, and never even get to see one, touch one, or sit inside one.  But be a reporter for a tech magazine and you get to take the yoke during a test flight...  Sounds like I made a wrong career choice somewhere along the line.
Come to think of it, I've spent a fair amount of the two years since I wrote that post working on that beauty.  I have to live vicariously through these videos. Yeah, I know... whine whine whine. 


8 comments:

  1. Yowie! Did he do a climb out or what!

    Some nice side-slips in there, too.

    Too bad he didn't do a Tex Johnston Dash-80 barrel roll or two.

    Several of my Sea Launch coworkers got to work on the 787 after Boeing pulled us all from the Sea Launch program.

    Quite a nice airplane once they got the battery problems sorted.

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  2. Yeah, that's a really impressive climb out. Funny you should mention Tex and the dash-80 roll - a friend sent me the video about that last night. Hadn't seen it in ages.

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  3. That was a cool video. Thanks for sharing. The climb reminded me of a Thanksgiving evening flight I took from Denver to San Francisco on a United 747 with more flight attendants than passengers. The takeoff g forces in a nearly empty 747 are something I would definitely recommend experiencing. We were aloft halfway down the runway, and the captain seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to "hot rod" the plane. What a fun flight.

    They moved the 10 or so of us up to a section in biz class. While over the basin and range I got up to use the lav, and walked back to coach. The dark sky, hundreds of empty seats, and dull engine hum was a spooky sight.

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  4. I was in the Air Force many years ago. A friend was a Russian interpretor whose job was to monitor Russian transmissions while on a modified Boeing 707 off the coast of Russia. Once while flying out of Anchorage to the Russian 12 mile limit a Russian fighter had been sent to identify them. The translator speaks directly into the pilots earphone and he repeated everything the Russian pilot and the Russian ground control says. The pilot armed the missile and then used the word "fire". My friend said that as soon as he told the pilot that they had been fired on the pilot rolled the 707 and went into a steep dive from cruisning altitude to 200 ft above sea level. A maneuver some think a 707 couldn't withstand. But it was in fact the intentional maneuver the Air Force required the pilot to take in the event he was fired upon. My friend said that the Russian pilot actually thought that either his radar was wrong or that the plane was shot down because it totally disappeared. The Fighter (then back in the 70's) cannot see down and the land based radar couldn't see over the horizon. Two people on the plane were unbelted and received serious injuries but the plane and everyone survived a very violent maneuver. I am listening at this moment to the news of the 787 shot down over the Ukraine and wondering if that plane could pull off this maneuver.

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  5. Both Pete and Anon1226 posted really cool comments. (I think everyone knows by now that's at typo - it was a 777 that was shot down).

    Anon - one of the fundamental differences between Airbus and Boeing is that Boeing believes the Pilot In Command should be in command, and if the PIC should have to push to the edge of envelope or beyond, they should hold it together and do what the Commander commands. I've read a story about a pilot over the Pacific who went through A Really Bad Thing in either a 707 or 737. They said he pushed the envelope so hard, he literally ripped sheet metal in the fuselage, but was able to keep the plane from going down and get somewhere safely.

    Over the years I've come to see the wisdom in the saying, "if it's Boeing, I ain't going"

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  6. I think you meant to say "If It AINT Boeing...."

    I've got a tee shirt that has that saying on it.

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  7. D'oh!!!

    The word eating monster came and ate the word NOT after I hit publish! I swear!

    You've seen the website "Damn You Autocorrect"? Sometimes my brain autocorrects like that.




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  8. Gorgeous airliner...and really, how many of them DO look that good? Nice flying, especially the high alpha/full flaps slow and sharp right turn -- not really something you want to do low to the ground!

    And yeah, I sort of did want to see a Tex Johnston Dash-80 roll...

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