The Best Pilot In The History Of Mankind

[Winterhawk]

You will not believe what happens during a vertical snap roll.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96DQk72ruRk&NR=1

[Wildkat]

Omg!!

I don't know if that was luck or talent (or both)... but DANG!!

Someone was watching over that pilot, for sure...

[mstic2000]

That's some mighty fine "barn stormin, by the seat of the pants flyin!"

[Ivan]

I have personally seen a pilot land a CallAir A9 with the wing covering separated on the left wing leading edge and a full load of fertilizer.

What this means is compared to the video, he had 800 extra pounds of load, 1/3 the horsepower, and half the control surface area, and one wing not lifting as well. In this case, he did not have the benefit of the "first rule of aviation" which states that if one puts enough horsepower on the barn door, it will fly.

[boyat68]

Something is fishy about that episode, as the pilot shows wearing a helmet in some of the pictures and later opens the cockpit canopy and no helmet. The interview with the pilot http://www.jamesandersson.com/video02.html shows a blase attitude but no pictures of the aircraft without the wing. The world press would have been beating down his door for an interview and would have been posted on all of the news outlets not just Youtube. "Something is rotten in Denmark."

[Yahman]

Spoiler: This video has been circulating widely on the internet as fact. Actually, it is complete fiction. At first the aircraft looks real and the wing separation seems authentic. If you listen closely, you'll hear that the engine sounds are not properly synchronized, the radio chatter seems out of place and the people are definitely over-acting.

Larry

[Ivan]

That had to be a model. When it did achieve touchdown, it bounced and slowed fast enough that a real aircraft would have collapsed the landing gear and nosed over.

The real give away is when the prop stops. That is a Mezjlik carbon fiber prop, used on large scale models in IMAC

[planedick]

Saw that

Some time ago I saw that, and if you look around the you-tube area in that kind of thing you will see it done again, except this time it IS a model. It is certainly possible to do that in a real plane such as the one shown as they are designed for such aerobatics and the landing will not be destroyed as it's titanium, nor will the airframe as those things are designed for such overloads. HOWEVER the wing comming off of such aircraft is something that just don't happen because of it's design parameters. So the question remains if it's real or not. Not IMPOSSIBLE, but VERY difficult. As for flying on the side like that, it's very possible and it's done all the time with stunt planes, even some old biplanes. Most any model plane will do that, but mostly because a model's power to weight ratio is way better than any real plane.

[randy]

The biggest thing I've ever piloted is a Cessna 172. When I saw that, I almost had to change my shorts, So that wasn't real? sure was a good video job. And the special effects oscar goes to......

[LoHo]

So the guy may be a great pilot, but a crappy mechanic...

[Ivan]

While I don't think that aircraft has a titanium landing gear, which would be upward of a million to produce, I am in total agreement on the wing separation. All the aerobatic planes used in modern times have a one piece main spar, which usually goes right under the pilot's knees, depending on the model. Most of these aircraft are rated for upwards of 12-15 gs. Military fighter pilots con only withstand 9 or 10 gs for about a minute, and 15 gs gets into seconds, even with the g-suit squeezing the blood back to their head. Add into this that a snaproll is performed in a stalled condition, meaning that the wing has quit flying, and there is almost no load on it what so ever. Basically, the wing could have been made from Styrofoam coated jello and held up through that maneuver. Wings fold on high stress maneuvers, like tight turns, hard pull outs and the such.

I grew up around aviation. I love it more than Regan loved jelly beans. My dad and his brothers and cousins all have over 10,000 hours. Thanks to my mother forcing my father to sell our Piper Pacer in the divorce, my flying career ended early. Having a choice in the matter, I would be flying aircraft, instead of making aircraft parts.

Here is my "shameless plug" for the greatest piloting episode ever:

A unique refueling mission on May 31, 1967, epitomizes the skill, determination, and heroism of the tanker crews. At that time, the 30-odd KC-135s primarily responsible for refueling the fighters were under the 4258th Strategic Wing. A crew consisting of aircraft commander Maj. John H. Casteel, copilot Capt. Richard L. Trail, navigator Capt. Dean L. Hoar, and boom operator MSgt. Nathan C. Campbell was assigned a refueling track over the Gulf of Tonkin. There was no reason to think this mission would be anything more than a normal day's work.

Soon after they had established their track, Major Casteel's crew was alerted to refuel a pair of Air Force F-104 fighters on a support mission north of the DMZ. (Early in the war, a few F-104s and F-102s were based briefly in South Vietnam, primarily for air defense.) While refueling the F-104s, Casteel was informed that two Navy KA-3 tankers, desperately short of fuel, were on the way to his tanker. Both KA-3s had fuel they could transfer but could not use themselves. After receiving a partial load, the F-104s stayed with Casteel's KC-135 to defend it against possible MiG attacks while it refueled the Navy aircraft.

The first Navy tanker took on a minimum of fuel then broke off to allow the second KA-3 to hook up. At this point, two Navy F-8s were vectored to the KC-135 for emergency refueling. One F-8 was so low on fuel that the pilot could not wait for the second KA-3 to complete refueling. The Navy pilot hooked up to the KA-3 that still was taking on fuel from the KC-135. That is believed to have been the first trilevel refueling ever. While the dual transfer was in progress, the first KA-3 passed fuel to the second F-8, then returned to the KC-135 to complete its own refueling.

This joint-service operation was still in progress when two Navy F-4s with bingo fuel were vectored to the KC-135 for emergency service. While waiting for the F-4s to appear, Casteel's crew gave the two Air Force F-104s another shot of fuel, then transferred enough to the Navy F-4s to get them to their carrier.

After this series of 10 refuelings, the KC-135 did not have enough fuel to return to its base in Thailand. It headed for an alternate in South Vietnam while refueling the two F-104s a third time to provide enough fuel to get them to their base.

For this remarkable series of refuelings that saved eight aircraft and their crews, Major Casteel and his crew were awarded the 1967 Mackay Trophy for the most meritorious Air Force flight of the year. In a sense, that award honored the hundreds of tanker crews that served with little acclaim during the eight years of tanker operations in the war.

snipped from here

My Dad's cousin was the copilot in that mission, so I am biased.

[barberad]

Another real good one from that era-Pardo's Push

Pardo's Push - Vietnam story


It was March 10, 1967, in enemy skies over Hanoi. The last of 44 F-4 aircraft were just coming off a bombing raid into North Vietnam when Capt. Bob Pardo and his wingman Capt. Earl Aman were both hit by enemy fire. Aman's aircraft was the worse off. Hit by two damaging blows to the fuel tank, he suddenly was down to 2,000 pounds of fuel instead of the 7,000 pounds he needed to safely return to the refueling tanker.

Pardo knew he had to do something quickly if Aman was going to make it out. First, he tried to use Aman's drag chute to help the wounded Phantom. With the drag chute extended, Pardo tried to maneuver behind Aman's aircraft so he could use the drag chute compartment to push the aircraft toward the tanker. No good. Turbulence was too great.

Pardo decided to try to use the tailhook on Aman's aircraft. He moved in under Aman's aircraft and got the tailhook against the windscreen of his F-4 Phantom. Success. By this time, Aman's aircraft was so low on fuel that Pardo told him to shut down the engines. Pardo's push was working, but the two aircraft had to stay directly in line with one another. Pardo would push for 15 to 20 seconds, lose the necessary balance and slide off to the side. Then he'd have to reposition and push again. By now the pressure of Aman's F-4 aircraft was cracking the windscreen of Pardo's fighter. As the spider web of cracks grew, Pardo became increasingly concerned. He moved the hook down the windscreen into a small metal area below. The hook stayed put, and the push continued. To keep his own damaged Phantom flying, Pardo shut down one engine for the last 10 minutes of the flight.

After pushing Aman's aircraft almost 88 miles, the two damaged Phantoms reached friendly air space. At 6,000 feet, with practically no fuel left, the two pilots and their weapons systems officers parachuted to safety.

"That was one hell of an airplane," retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Bob Pardo recalled later. "For one aircraft to get two airplanes that far out of Vietnam speaks very well of the people who put it together."

[Ivan]

I live for stories like that.

I saw a similar story on discovery channel "dogfights" with F86 saber jets. One pushed the other out of the war zone in Korea. Near KunSan (?) the one with no fuel punched out, and splashed in the water. The rescue chopper pilot hat the hot idea to use the rotor wash to push the downed pilot to shore, but the shroud lines wrapped around his neck and killed him.

Maybe when I get six kids out on their own, I can start writing my own stories, about flying. Until then, I'll have lots of fun on my XS.

[Pat Kelly]

My father has been flying for over 60 years. He has logged over 60,000 hours. He's 81 years old and hasn't retired yet and still has his pilots license. For the last 45 years he has flown air tankers used in fire-fighting. He has designed several systems used in aviation including the drop system used for fire-fighting in the C-130.
He was even in a James Bond movie "The Living Daylights" (1st movie with Timothy Dalton as 007). He was in the sequence with the (allegedly) C-130 flying with the cargo net hanging out the back, 007 and the badguy fighting on the net. If you look close when the badguy falls you can see the plane is actually a C-123. This was filmed in the Mojave Desert when my Dad was there training new pilots to fly the C-123 and 130's.
My favorite plane he flew was the Grumman F7F "Tigercat".
For anyone travelling Hwy 99 in So Calif thru Visalia, there is a C130 parked at the end of the runway with #67 on the rudder. He's flown that plane (took me for a short ride in it).
About 10-15 years ago he was honored by the FAA as "the only person, ever, to be a certified pilot and mechanic with no violations or accidents (only takes one accident) employed for over 50 years with the exception of 3 days". I don't think the FAA had been around that long, it was Civil Aviation when Dad started.
He saved his money from mowing lawns (his only other job) and snuck off to get his pilots license. After that all he's done is fly.

[SFerinTEXAS]

Some great stories.Brought to mind a Youtube I watched recently about an F15 that lost a wing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk1KBQ96_DI