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2011 Thunder Over the BoardWalk

The middle of August has become known for the evasion of the warbirds young and old over Atlantic City's Beaches in the Annul Thunder Over the Boardwalk. Sun, Sand and the Smell of jet fuel and Sun screen have become the call of the Flight Junky.

At first I thought I would be disappointed with 2011's show being I was already aggravated with the Park&Ride, but I would have to say that I was pleasantly surprised again by the planners and David Shults Airshows!

I really got a kick out of Jim Beasley's Super Marine Spitfire. It appeared to be in great shape and ran as well as it did 65 years ago when it was blowing Meserschnitt's out of the sky over the English Channel, I found myself daydreaming about the Battle of Britain while I watched him gracefully swoop and loop over the Atlantic City skyline.

The planners could not have lined up a better surprise guest for us Flight Junkys than the V-22 Osprey!!!! I have been hearing of this new finagled nonsense since I was a young child , and it was a thrill to finally see the Osprey take flight before my eyes. After watching the Osprey fly, this pilots came to the opinion that the V-22 is a cumbersome and difficult aircraft to fly. Graceful it is not , as a matter of fact it seem to lumber about instead of fly and be one loose nut away from catastrophic failure at anytime.

The new kids on the block Heavy Metal put on a nice aerial display with their L-39's and Mig 17. I really came to be impressed by the Mig which stood out over the L-39 in every way, almost as to say that I am a warrior and your not. At anytime the Mig 17 out flew the L-39's as if they were sitting still and thankful they were not fighting each other .

I have been watching the Thunder Birds for years and have not known them to change up their act much, 2011 would prove to be different. Me and my wife have become accustom to their low altitude high speed sneak attack passes from years of going to their airshows to the point were we could predict them and prepare and watch with amusement as they would surprise the rest of the crowed. Well this year we left repeatlly just as surprised as the rest of the spectators this year as they added a full four more sneak attack passes!

South West- AirTran Happily Ever After?

 

 

         It’s not exactly new news that South West  Airlines (SWA) bought AirTran (AII).One of the first thoughts I had concerned  AirTran signature  B-717, a modernized DC-9. If I ever had to guess as to what airframe South West could adopt it would have to be the venerable and quirky 717. 

 

       The powers that be have yet to give the final blessing on the takeover, but most would agree that shouldn’t be very many serious challenge's , but a fair amount success enjoyed by both party's,

Eastern Flight 401 Human Factors

It was the first crash of a wide body jet on the last Friday of 1972

Eastern Airline was the first airline to suffer the loss of the new L1011,it was the first

of the tri star wide body jet’s . Sadly this was one of the most preventable accidents in

aviation

history . Even though now the cause of this tragedy seem simple and clear cut, like

many other accidents in air travel, there is more involved then the is seen on the

surface . First let’s take a look at the aircraft in this event, EA310 was one of a dozen

L1011’s delivered in 1972. Eastern marketed the L1011 as the Wisperliner,

Manufactured by Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank California this aircraft was the first

Cat111c (Wikipedia Flt 401) autolanding system this gave the L1011 the ability to make

zero-zero landings. In the Eastern Airline configuration was able to accommodate 229

passengers and had to lower galleys , the average crew complement was 13 ten flight

attendants and three flight crew members . The L1011 did not make it to market with out

problems , there was a strike at the Rolls-Royce factory which delayed production . This

was followed by a filing for bankruptcy, that was only resolved when the United States

promised to back loans for the company , these and other delays would play a small part

in the accident .


Flight 401 went down in the Florida Everglades at 11:42 PM December 29 1972

18.7 miles from the end of runway nine left as a result of pilot error. There were 99

fatalities and 77 survivors . There were a lot of contributing factors that need to be

looked at closely to really under stand what happened on that that night . Some of the

factors I’m going to mention are upset of circadian rhythm ,deviation from Standard

operating procedure , illness dissimilar equipment and distraction .




Flight 401 had a total of four people in the cockpit at the time of the accident capt.

Robert Alban Loft, Albert John Stockskill, Donald Louis Repo, Angelo Donadeo (was

dead heading) . For this leg of the trip F/O John Stockskill was pilot flying while Capt

Robert Loft was Pilot not flying. Flight 401 was on final approach to runway nine left

when first Officer Albert Stockskill noticed that he did not have three green lights

indicating that his landing gear was down and locked . At this point the flight crew

reported to Miami tower they were going missed , and they would need to be vectored to

a hold to trouble shoot the gear problem . Donald Repo went down to the Hell hole, an

area under the flight deck where the most of the electronics were located to look threw

window of sorts to see if the landing was extended .



It was assumed at some point in the next few minuets that Capt Loft bumped his

control stick with enough pressure to disconnect the auto pilot. (the ghost of flight 401 pg

53) with the auto pilot disconnected the aircraft began an decent that was unnoticed to

the crew because of the human bodies physiology , because of the subtle and prolonged

nature of the decent the pilots were unaware of it.(Basic Flight Physiology pg128)

So we can clearly see how the burned out light caused the distraction part of the

accident chain. Now we can move on to dissimilar equipment, when the NTSB

investigators examined the forward cockpit area the found to different auto pilots

there was a model 1-7 and a model 1-8 . The difference was that one required only

fifteen pounds of pressure to disconnect the auto pilot while the other needed twenty lbs



also when one unit was disengaged the other would still read as it were working on

holding altitude when in fact it was not(http://eastern401.googlepages.com/investigation)

. So this would cover the dissimilar equipment aspect of the accident .


So the flight crew was now preoccupied and falling victim to something nobody would

have thought of by installing the two mismatched auto pilots . This is were proper

training and a set of standard operating procedures would help protect the flight crew

from mishap , not to mention better crew resource management CRM . With the flight

engineer down in the Hell hole and the indicator lights for the landing gear nearer to the

copilot it would seem that the captain should have been the one monitoring the flight
instruments , but that is just my opinion. One could also look at the layout of the

cockpit in that the C-cord chime warning was partly drowned out by the noise an air

vent. (Ghost of flight 401)


There is not a whole lot of information on the sleep patterns of the flight crew before

the accident. But we do know that there was at lest one crew member that was

complaining that he could not get a good night sleep because he was not feeling well,

we know this because Don Repo told a close friend this before the flight. (Ghost of Flight

401)





Conclusion

There seems like a lot of links in this chain were the result of bad luck and

complacency . One would hope that the lesions learned here would be remembered

for future training . In the end 103 people lost there lives Eastern lost crew a plane and

the damage to the reputation of the airline, manufacture, and the industry as a whole are

long lasting and hard to change . In the defense of the aircrew the mismatching types of

auto pilot’s seem almost criminal in its idiocy , how this was ever considered a

reasonable action one will never know . But pilots must be ready for Murphy’s Law,

every pilot has heard the mantra from there flight instructor “ no matter what happens

always fly the plane FIRST!”

Christopher Hill

September 3 2009

Everglades University

Wall Twp Plane crash

The plane that crashed in Wall Twp was a Cessna 337 Sky Master, not a 172. The news keeps repeating the mistake over and over. It does not take much effort to look up the N-number in the FAA's data base. If I was a betting person I would guess the NTSB will conclude that the pilot initiated a low altitude high speed pass that exceeded the Sky Master's VNE (never exceed speed), this led to catastrophic failure of some of the airframe components. Its way to early to speculate, but unfortunately I witness reports seem to indicate that the pilot was buzzing friends or family on the ground. This is a all to common accident in General Aviation, that is highly avoidable.

Cirrus SR 20 and a glider tow plane have a mid air in CO

From what I can see the Cirrus was able to deploy its airframe recovery chute but it was fully engulfed in flames , No word on the other plane towing the glider as of yet but there is three confirmed fatalities. The glider was able to disconnect and the pilot made an uneventful landing.

Crash M20 in Indiana

There was a possible CFIT accident involving what was thouht to be a Mooney M20 .

ALBANY, Ind. — A single-engine plane crashed into an Indiana cornfield Wednesday after the pilot, who was seen slumped over at the controls, lost consciousness and the aircraft flew out of control, officials said.
Military officials do not believe the crash was terrorism-related but instead said the pilot may have had a health problem or been suffering from a lack of oxygen. F-16s under direction of U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command intercepted the plane and followed it for about an hour until it crashed.
Indiana State Police Sgt. Rod Russell said the pilot, who was the only person aboard the plane, died in the crash but that the pilot's name would not be released until the body is positively identified. No one on the ground was injured when it crashed.
David Lykins, 54, of Muncie said he and his nephew were doing construction work on a nearby home when they saw the plane, its wings pointed down, fly in three circles overhead before it clipped some trees and crashed into the field.
"That's when all the debris started flying and a big puff of smoke came up," he said.
Lykins said he called 911 while his nephew ran ahead through the cornfield to reach the plane, which was engulfed in flames and clouds of smoke.
The plane departed from Grand Rapids, Mich., and then flew north to Traverse City, Mich., said FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro in Chicago. It turned around in Traverse City was flying back to Grand Rapids when it lost communication with ground air traffic controllers, Molinaro said.
The plane crashed about 12:40 p.m. EDT in a field in a rural area of eastern Indiana, about 60 miles northeast of Indianapolis and 185 miles south of Grand Rapids, NORAD said. John Erickson, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, said the aircraft crashed on its own.Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/30/indiana-plane-crash-pilot_n_304516.html

I think this will turn out to be a case of heart failuar , or they will find the oxegen system was not working or engaged in some way. Will have wait for the NTSB findings before we can speculate more.