Videos Archives - Page 27 of 46 - Golf Hotel Whiskey

Could you land an airliner if you had to?

Hat tip to the Around the Pattern blog for noticing this episode from the Aviators’ series that asked the question: Could you as a private pilot land n airliner if you needed to in an emergency?

In the video segment where the host of the show is in a flight simulator, the air traffic controller pointed out that landing an airliner will be like landing any other aircraft. However the host of the show noted that all heading and altitude adjustments had to be made on the FCU panel while the autopilot did the rest. Finally and as for the landing itself (after the autopilot was switched off), the host had to flare the aircraft a little higher than what he was used to since it was a much larger aircraft. Nevertheless, he was able to safely land the commercial aircraft in the flight simulator.

Hence, do you think that you could safely land a commercial airline if you had to in an emergency?

Spin recovery acronym

Knowing proper spin recovery techniques can easily save your life should you ever enter into a dangerous spin. Hence, a recent video by Jason Schappert of the MzeroA.com blog is well worth watching as he comes up with a spin recovery acronym that is both easy to remember and may save your life. Specifically, Jason’s spin recovery acronym is P.A.R.E. which stands for:

P: Power Back
A: Ailerons Neutral
R: Rudder (Opposite)
E: Elevator (Down)

In the video, Jason will walk you through each of these spin recovery steps.

Jason also mentioned that he has just released a new book entitled Aviation Acronyms that is full of useful acronyms for pilots. Aviation Acronyms is available for $12.97 on Amazon.com where you can also have a look inside before purchasing.

The first human-powered helicopter (the Gamera) takes flight

Earlier this month, a team of 52 graduate students from the University of Maryland were able to get the first human-powered helicopter called the Gamera off the ground. In the video of the flight, it appears the helicopter achieved liftoff of roughly 3 to 5 inches and a hover time of 4 seconds – still shorter than the Wright Brothers’ historical flight but at least there was liftoff. However, the flight will still need to be confirmed by the National Aeronautics Association and the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.

The project is part of an effort to set an aviation ‘first’ along with a world record plus win the $ 250 000 Sikorsky Challenge.

The helicopter itself was constructed of light weight materials such as balsa wood, carbon fiber, foam and mylar and has a backbone consisting of a massive X frame where each crossbar measures 18 meter or 60 feet. Four huge rotors measuring 12.6 meters or 42 feet long then sit at the ends of the crossbars. The entire contraction takes ups a about a third of a football field but it only weighs roughly 95 kilograms or 210 pounds (not counting the weight of the pilot). The pilot (in this case, 24 year old graduate student Judy Wexler) sits in the middle and peddles HARD to fly the thing.

To watch the flight, check out this video but do note that the actual flight comes at about the three minute mark.

The Knuffingen Airport: The world’s largest airport model

If you love models and model airplanes, an incredible scale model of the Hamburg Airport has recently opened to the public in Germany to become the world’s largest model airport/railway. The Knuffingen Airport features 40 planes and 90 vehicles that are able to autonomously move around the airport. In fact, it took seven years to build the 100:1 scale model that cost a total $4.8 million.

Moreover, the Knuffingen Airport model covers 150 square meters and includes:

A variety of aircraft from Airbus A380s to Cessnas.
40,000 lights
15,000 figurines
500 cars
10,000 trees
50 trains
1,000 wagons
100 signals
200 switches
300 buildings

Rodney’s Aviation Ramblings has also recently posted a video showing how truly amazing the runway sections of the airport model are while more pictures of the terminal areas can be seen here.

The Knuffingen Airport model itself is on display at the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany.

How to master short field landings

Jason Schappert, the blogger behind the MzeroA site, has recently written a post where he compiled his three videos about short field landings. He also noted that in his most recent video, he took one of his students over Cedar Key for some short field landing practice (and of course, a bite to eat). This video contains mostly raw footage of traffic patterns plus short field landing practice.

Hence and if you think that you will need to do a short field landing at some point as a pilot, all three of Jason’s videos are well worth watching.

Aussie pilot has a close encounter with an Emu

Sylvia, the blogger behind the Fear of Landing blog had recently posted an interesting video of a near-miss involving an aircraft landing in Australia and an Emu. However, she went a step further and contacted the pilot in the incident to find out his side of the story about what happened.

According to the pilot, he takes a yearly trip up to a 200,000 acre farm (that’s right – the farm is 809 square kilometers and takes 2.5 hours to drive across) that raises cattle and has a landing trip. Normally he calls ahead to have someone shoo away the wildlife (e.g. wild pigs, cattle etc.) and this time around someone came out to shoot a wild pig on the runway.

However, and as he landed, an emu that was:

…was sitting on the side unseen in the bushes and we obviously startled it, and it bolted from cover in front. One of my passengers yelled out, and I jumped on the brakes, hard, and washed off about 40 knots in about 3 seconds! The emu went in front of us and lost his footing on the loose dust, just as the wing passed harmlessly over him! Cue much celebration!

That’s one lucky bird and one lucky pilot and aircraft as we can only imagine what kind of damage a giant flightless bird could have done to a small aircraft!