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Videos

Video: St Maarten-like plane spotting on Skiathos in Greece

European plane spotters don’t have to travel all the way to St Maarten in the Caribbean to see the very low-altitude flyovers that the Princess Juliana International Airport on the island is famous for because the airport on the Greek island of Skiathos offers identical approaches. In fact, Skiathos Airport “Alexandros Papadiamantis” (IATA: JSI, ICAO: LGSK) has been called the “2nd St Maarten Princess Juliana Airport” or the “European St Maarten” as you can watch the aircraft land from a coastal road at the end of its 5,341 foot runway – which can accommodate aircraft up to the size of a Boeing 757-200.

To appreciate the action on Skiathos, check out this 60-minute video compilation of landings and takeoffs from the airport:

Cool video: Flying robots or drones working together

Hat tip to David Cenciotti and his Aviationist blog for posting a video of the “Feedback Control and the Coming Machine Revolution” presentation by Professor Raffaello D’Andrea from ETH Zurich about the future capabilities of machines. The lecture is around 23 minutes long with the flying robots or drones making their debut at around the 9 minute mark when Raffaello explains how they work.

However, the most interesting point in the lecture comes at around the 19 minute mark when the three drones throw a ball in the air and move to intercept it. This shows how drones can be programmed to work together to accomplish tasks beyond their individual capabilities:

The Corrigan Brothers: An Irish band pays tribute to “Wrongway” Corrigan

An Irish band calling itself the Corrigan Brothers is celebrating the 75th anniversary of Douglas “Wrongway” Corrigan’s flight from Floyd Bennett Field, New York, to Baldonnel Aerodrome in Ireland on July 18, 1938 with the following song or music video:

In case you don’t know the story of Douglas “Wrongway” Corrigan, he learned to fly in the mid-1920s and later worked in an aircraft factory where he was actually responsible for the wing assembly and the installation of the gas tanks and instrument panel on Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St Louis. In fact, he and a colleague increased the lift of the Spirit of St Louis by extending the wing 10 feet (3.0 meters) longer and he pulled the chocks from the aircraft when Lindbergh took off from San Diego to New York to prepare for his historic flight.

Corrigan also wanted to fly across the Atlantic and in 1935, he sought permission from the Bureau of Air Commerce for a non-stop flight from New York and Ireland. His application was rejected and over the next two years, he made repeated modifications to his aircraft and reapplications which were all rejected.

Increasingly exasperated by government red tape and increasing aircraft regulations, its believed Corrigan decided to make an unofficial crossing. In 1938, he filed a flight plan to fly from New York to Long Beach, but instead ended up in Ireland.

Corrigan claimed his unauthorized transatlantic flight was due to a navigational error caused by heavy cloud cover which obscured landmarks along with low-light conditions that caused him to misread his compass. It took a 600 word telegram by aviation officials to list all of the regulations broken, but he received only a 14-day suspension of his pilot certificate along with a couple of ticker tape parades when he returned to the States. He later bought an orange grove in Southern California where he quietly passed away in 1995 – never admitting whether his flight to Ireland was deliberate or not.

As for the Corrigan Brothers, General Aviation News quoted one as saying:

We are hoping to perform the song in the very spot Douglas landed on July 18, 2013, provided we have clearance from air traffic control. We will log our song plan and will not deviate from its course, unlike good old Douglas.

The Corrigan Brothers are also recording their second album (“Our Favourite Irish Songs”), will begin a world tour in October and are researching their family tree in the hopes of finding a link to “Wrongway” Corrigan.

Time lapse video of the HMS Queen Elizabeth’s first of two islands being installed

Hat tip to the Aviationist Blog for finding and posting this time lapse video of the installation of the HMS Queen Elizabeth’s first of two islands that was put together by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance – the coalition of several ship building companies delivering the UK’s latest aircraft carrier flagships:

The island had been constructed in Portsmouth and brought to Scotland by barge. Both carriers (the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales) are being built in a modular fashion (a construction method already being used to build cruise ships and other large ocean going vessels) at several yards all over the UK and then  shipped to Rosyth, Scotland, for final assembly into an aircraft carrier.

The Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers will be the biggest and most powerful surface warships ever built for the Royal Navy and will have 679 permanent crew who could potentially see deployments for as long as 9 months. You can learn more about these ships on the Aircraft Carrier Alliance’s webpage or its YouTube channel.