Golf Hotel Whiskey

Amelia Earhart’s birthday (and the lawsuit over the search for her plane)

Amelia Earhart was born 116 years ago today on July 24, 1897 while the anniversary of her July 2, 1937 disappearance was just a few weeks ago. To this day, we still don’t know for certain what happened to her, but you might not know that from a lawsuit that’s been filed against the group searching for her lost aircraft.

According to a local Wyoming paper (Side note: The construction of a cabin intended to be Earhart’s summer home in the state was never completed due to her disappearance), local Timothy Mellon (the son of Paul Mellon, as in the Mellon banking fortune and Carnegie Mellon University) is suing The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) for withholding the news of the discovery of Earhart’s aircraft in order to squeeze $1 million from him to pay for a later, superfluous search.

Earhart’s aircraft being found may come as news to history buffs, but the lawsuit asserts that video footage from a 2010 expedition near Nikumaroro, an island in the South Pacific, shows wreckage of her Lockheed Electra (and speculation that she died as a castaway on the island is a very plausible scenario).

Apparently, Mellon thinks he sees “human remains, a toilet and a toilet seat, a banjo and case and toilet paper rolls” in some of the pictures or videos posted on the TIGHAR website. However, TIGHAR Executive Director Richard Gillespie has told the Star-Tribune:

“I have looked at that video 100 times, and there’s nothing there but coral, I wish there was! I’ve been searching for Amelia Earhart for 25 years. If there was anything there, I would be all over it.”

TIGHAR’s attorneys have filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

The wow factor: Red Arrows and a BA A380 do a flypast

Hat tip to the Digital Aviator for finding and posting this amazing picture of a BA A380 and the Red Arrows doing a flypast at the recent Royal International Air Tatoo at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire:

A quick search of YouTube reveals the following videos of the flypast:

The Daily Mirror also has some great shots of the flypast while RAF Squadron Leader Mike Ling told the paper:

“Putting our Hawk jets behind or alongside an aircraft of the size of the Airbus A380 obviously involves a great deal of precision but the task is essentially the same as the careful flying required for air-to-air refuelling with a big tanker aircraft. Flying in formation with the Airbus A380 was a highlight of our year.”

The gargantuan aircraft costs £270million and can carry 469 passengers – nearly double the number of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. British Airways will put the A380 into service on its routes to Los Angeles and Hong Kong some time in early autumn. Moreover and by 2016, the airline intends to have a dozen A380s in its fleet.

What’s the time at an airport with a military base…?

On some air bases the Air Force is on one side of the field and civilian aircraft use the other side of the field, with the control tower in the middle.

One day the tower received a call from an aircraft asking: “What time is it?”

The tower responded: “Who is calling?”

The aircraft replied: “What difference does it make?”

The tower replied: “It makes a lot of difference. If it is an American Airlines Flight, it is 3 o’clock. If it is an Air Force, it is 1500 hours. If it is a Navy aircraft, it is 6 bells. If it is an Army aircraft, the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the 3. If it is a Marine Corps aircraft, it’s Thursday afternoon…”

FAA: Please don’t shoot down any drones

Over in America, the FAA has been forced to release a statement in response to a proposed ordinance under consideration in the tiny farming community of Deer Trail, Colorado, that would encourage hunters to shoot down drones. Under the proposed ordinance, Deer Trail would give $25 hunting permits to hunters to shoot down drones and then reward them with $100 when a valid (drone) hunting license and identifiable pieces of a drone are presented.

Resident Phillip Steel authored the proposal (more or less symbolic) and has told the media he has 28 signatures on a petition or roughly 10% of the town’s registered voters. Under Colorado law, local officials must formally consider the proposal at a meeting next month and they would have the option of either adopting the ordinance or putting it on the ballot in an election this fall.

However, the FAA warned that a drone:

…hit by gunfire could crash, causing damage to persons or property on the ground, or it could collide with other objects in the air. Shooting at an unmanned aircraft could result in criminal or civil liability, just as would firing at a manned airplane.

Steel dismissed the FAA’s warning plus there are dozens of other laws being introduced across the country aimed at curbing the use of the unmanned aircraft or drones.

Meanwhile, the FAA is working on regulations to integrate drones into the skies and Congress has given them until 2015 to develop the necessary regulations, but the agency is behind schedule. Once the drone regulations are in place, thousands of drones could take to the skies – something that concerns privacy advocates.

The ultimate British race: A Spitfire vs. a Range Rover

Ahead of this weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, FortyOneSix.com organized this unique race between two British legends – the Supermarine Spitfire and the Range Rover:

The Vickers Supermarine Spitfire (piloted by Matt Jones from the Boultbee Flight Academy) was a 1945-vintage model powered by a 1,750-bhp V12 Merlin engine with a maximum airspeed of 400 mph or 644 kmh while the All-New Range Rover Sport was a 5.0-litre supercharged V8 model with 510 hp driven by Mike Cross, Jaguar Land Rover’s Chief Vehicle Integrity Engineer.

The race took place on a grass airstrip at the Goodwood Aerodrome in Sussex and involved a straight drag run down and back on the runway along with a U-turn. However, grass terrain is considered to be one of the most challenging terrains for a vehicle to gain traction as well as to accelerate or brake on. Nevertheless, Cross still manage to hit speeds of 130 mph or 209 kmh before having to brake for the mid-race turn.

Cool video: Learn how to paraglide

Ryan Southwell Films has released a really cool short film about flying powered paragliders over California’s Glamis Dunes and the Salton Sea earlier this year:

If you think it would be fun to go paragliding somewhere, check out the website of Team FlyHalo (or their YouTube channel) – an Oregon based powered paragliding training and paramotor sales company with training centers in coastal Oregon (ideal for training during the summer months), California (training can be done during the winter and spring months) and Galveston, Texas (with great wind and warm sunny conditions during the fall and winter months). Just be aware that you will need to spend a full 7 to 10 days away from home to become properly trained.

And if flying over a desert fails to appeal to you, here is a video showing Team FlyHalo’s paragliding training above Oregon:

Golf Hotel Whiskey: for pilots and aviation enthusiasts