Pilot's view AIR14

Everyone related to aviation in Europe knows by now that AIR14 at Payerne Switzerland was one of the greatest Airshows of the year but how about seeing it from a different perspective like a pilot's view of Swiss A330 or a Patrouille Suisse F-5.

Here is the video.

Safe Flight SCx AoA System

Safe Flight Instrument Corporation presented on Airventure Oshkosh 2014 their new Angle of Attack indicator, here is a video from AVWeb with a small presentation and practical demonstration of the product.

New Lightspeed PFX

New Noise Reduction systems from Lightspeed. Here's the PFX.

Innovations of the future available now!

Probably all pilots remember those futuristic helmets used in several movies like Star Wars Blue Thunder and others.

With the passing of the years we came to know that some of that technology was no longer science fiction, instead of that it was a well known and documented reality in the military with projects like the Apache helicopter and the Eurofighter. Helmets became part of the aircraft systems and an important tool for pilots to fly and control the aircraft weapon systems at the same time creating the new pattern of Look and Shoot.

Now a company called Aero Glass presented on this year edition of Airventure Oshkosh a Augmented-Reality Glasses a product that has so much of innovation in general aviation that realy seem to be from the future. Their first model was based on Google Glasses but the limitation of only one screen to one eye made Aero Glass change project to other model from Epson.

Here is a video with the explanation of the product from AVWeb.

747 the end of an era?

So it says an article of the Brazilian publication Aero Magazine. According to this news magazine the long range intercontinental routes for the Queen of the Skies might have it's days counted, specially in the Pacific that for now is the area of the world where the 747 flies more in log range and ultra long range connecting mainly the US to Singapore, Japan and several other countries in Asia.

According also with Aero Magazine Japan Airlines retired their 747 fleet in 2011 and All Nippon Airways retired their last 747-400SR used in shorter domestic routes with high PAX demand, on March this year.

Other airlines are referred for leaving the 747 operation such as Air New Zealand Cathay Pacific Philippine Airlines and more recent Delta Airways. The same article justify this strategy of airlines as they are now switching the four engine 747 for two engine aircraft with long range capabilities such as Airbus A330 for shorter ranges and the Boeing 777 for long range and ultra long range. Beside the loss of cargo and passenger capacity on each flight the return per PAX is higher due to the lack of two engines that witch require more fuel and more maintenance.

Some airlines like United Airlines claim that the 747-4 fleet will be replaced gradually with the entry of the new 747-8 more fuel efficient and wit bigger capacity.

For now there are 51 orders for the 747-8 intercontinental, the passenger version and 69 for the 747-8f the cargo version including a new order by Cargolux, first B747-8 operator that claims that there is no other plane with the same cargo capacity in the market.

Aero Magazine also says that specialists claim that the tendency for airlines will be to operated twin engine aircraft for economic reasons an issue that can compromise not only Boeing but also Airbus with it's A380.

Another Flying Day!

The early morning was somewhat sunny between some clouds and the TAF wasn't the best for a good flying day.

But after all the day wasn't so bad at all so I took the chance to spread the wings and go for a ride once more. This time we went from Cascais airfield, LPCS, to the north passing Ericeira, Santarém, Ponte de Sor the to the south passim Montemor o Novo, Alcácer do Sal, Santo André and return via shore line and VFR tunnels to Cascais.

70th. anniversary of Operation Market Garden

Yesterday was the 70th. Anniversary of the Operation Market Garden in WWII. This operation was the biggest para-drop in history and the objective was to regain control of the Netherlands.

The Douglas C-47 Sn: 43-15037 was among all the Dakotas involved in such huge effort to bring troops to fight against the Nazis. This very same aircraft is now passing through a restoration for static display with dual paint scheme. On one side the last paint scheme as it was when it stop flying in 1979 operated by the Portuguese Aviation Authority, at the time D.G.A.C. Direcção Geral de Aeronáutica Civil. On the other side and interior it represents the CS-TDE of the Portuguese Airline TAP and this particular registration was chosen because it was TDE that flew for the first time between Lisboa the capital of Portugal and Lourenço Marques, nowadays Maputo the capital of that Portuguese colony those days, now Mozambique.

250 and counting!

To a professional pilot 250 hours TT is a thing from the past and now the logbook is measured by the thousands. But remember that one day you were a humble low houred pilot trying to gain experience and try to keep that way, always learning. Safe flights!

My most recent flight

Enjoy this video.

Credits: Daniela Ferreira

This week it's all about Oshkosh 2014

Here is the link for those who can't be present at this year's EAA's Airventure at Oshkosh.

http://www.eaa.org/en/airventure/eaa-airventure-news-and-multimedia/eaa-airventure-webcams

Enjoy!

Pic of the day!

Amazing A310 video

Here is a video of an Airbus A310 from SATA Internacional landing in Ponta Delgada, Azores Portugal. Hope you like it.

From Facebook

Post by Tom Powers.

What if...

What if power engine test is being done over a ground brick covered surface instead of a tarmac or concrete surface?

According to Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Facebook page, a few days ago in Pakistan someone found the answer to this question the hard way. A engine power test of a Boeing 737-400 has been taken over a brick covered ground and the result? Well see it for your selves.

Pakistani road services have found a new way to rapidly remove road-layers.

Babies and planes

Boeing delivers 8,000th 737 to United

The 737 was an aircraft that at the very beginning didn't sold much and the whole project was even planned to be shut down.

All this years later the 737 is probably the the aircraft that flies all over the world more often and in bigger quantity. Recently Boeing delivered it's 8,000th 737, a 737-900ER to United.

Photograph: Boeing Co.

Cockpit approach at London City Airport in an Avro RJ85

Nice video of a challenging approach to London City Airport.

Still about yesterday

Those lovely people from Aerodreams, see previous post, were very nice to me and not only showed me their installations but also gave me a full tour to the airfield showing other hangars other airplanes and presenting other aviation pilots and enthusiasts who were enjoying the lovely day to spread their wings.

One quite interesting aircraft was this Citius on the photos below that was for sale. This Citius as built in Portugal in a company called BRM who specialized in ultralight aircraft fabrication and has already a good market share here in Portugal and is also making some sales outside

With a lighter structure than the Cessna 152 but with the same power about 100 bhp the Citius seemed to me being an excellent choice for those ultralight pilots in Europe who want some STOL capacity, space and an easy to fly aircraft. There are some similarities between the Citius and other BRM project the Land Africa but the wing with no Slats and a small structural difference on the tail make this model distinctive from the Land Africa.

About the Cessna 152 the first thing that a C152 will notice is the huge space on the cabin, and I REALLY MEAN HUGE. Side by side two persons normal size won't touch on each other unlike the C152 that when the two on board are the same size it's a struggle to fit their shoulders and move inside.

Testing the BRM Citius comfort - photo: Mário Abreu

Citius Exterior - Photo: BRM

Please visit BRM website to know more about the Citius the Land Africa and their new project the Argos.

http://www.landafrica.com

Planes planes and more planes...

In the morning I went to the Portuguese Air Museum to continue volunteer work on the DC-3 but this time for several reasons there were only two volunteers and the list of "to do" things was considerable.

During all morning and after lunch we tried to manage most of the items on the list but some was a bit complicated to do without more people to help.

Although after lunch I still got time for a small photo shoot outside on the way back.

photo: Filipe Cardoso 

photo: Filipe Cardoso 

photo: Filipe Cardoso

The quality isn't the best as they were taken with my cell phone, not a proper camera.

After all the possible work done my fellow volunteer invited me to go with him to Azambuja to a nearby airfield in a farm called Alqueidão.

Alqueidão Airfield, http://roteiro.apau.org/zp_alqueidao.html, is a well strong community of aviators that today took advantage of the exceptional good weather conditions and sunny day to spread wings and fly. Traffic is majorly composed by microlight and ultralight aircraft, (European categories), and the airfield has even small restaurant witch is quite pleasant and brings more people to the airfield by car of by airplane only to see friends talk a bit about aviation an laugh a lot.

In Alqueidão there is a company called Aerodreams, http://www.aerodreams.pnh.pt, specialized in flight training, maintenance and aircraft sales. This company owns the very first Comp Let Shark an amazing ultralight aircraft with dual seat in tandem configuration and performance capabilities capable of embarrassing some bigger and more powerful aircraft.

 Aerodreams Land Africa - Photo: FIlipe Cardoso 

 Aerodreams Shark - Photo: FIlipe Cardoso

On the other side of the World, the earthround continues

This time From Seletar, Singapore to Bali, Indonesia then Port Hedland, Cunderdin and Ceduna, all in Australia. 

Cunderdin wasn't an original destination of the earthround project of Captain Faria e Mello but the Northam airfield, (ICAO YNTM) seems not to exist in FSX so I looked for the closest airfield and Cunderdin came as an option.

From Colombo, Sri Lanka to Seletar, Singapore