Fred

As many folks know, I follow both the military and commercial aviation industry very closely.

It is with sadness that I report my belief that as of today, with the first flight of the Airbus A400-M, Lockheed and the C-130 are now in the latter stages of their terminal illness of failure in innovation. This is of course, my personal opinion based on my own observations.

The United States has a great history in the invention and the historical development of great aircraft since the Wright Brothers took that first flight. We've built the world's best general aviation aircraft, bombers, fighters, commercial airliners, etc. Through the years, we've seen great companies come and go, some merging into other companies, and some only faded memories.

We've remember great names such as Douglas, Northrop, General Dynamics, Convair, Martin, Hughes, Rockwell, Fairchild, North American, and on and on the list goes disappear into oblivion or consolidation. Today, it takes considerable research to trace the 'family trees' of America's aviation history.

Today, there is only one manufacturer of great commercial airliners which remains in America (Boeing) which is in stiff competition with Europe's Airbus.

Today, the once great Lockheed corporation which at one time produced the C-130, C-5, and C-141 all at the same time is down to the production of only one military cargo airplane. Lockheed is out of the business of developing and producing fighters and commercial airplanes.

As I have said many times before, I sincerely believe that Lockheed's days are numbered and that within the next 20 years, Lockheed is likely to fade into memory as a once great manufacturer of both military and civilian aircraft.

When our military wanted a smaller transport to meet changing military needs, all Lockheed could come up with was the C-130J. In the end, the United States selected the Alenia (Italian) C-27J to fill that need, and today, the U.S. is buying a foreign cargo transport.

In my opinion, Lockheed has failed miserably in the area of research and development of new military designs in the past quarter century. The C-130 is a wonderful airframe, and no doubt one of the best aircraft ever built. But Lockheed has selected to "rest on its laurels" with the C-130 and I believe that the days of the C-130 are coming to an end.

Whilst Airbus has been troubled with the development of the A-400M, today they finally got the bird off the ground. The world is watching.

The A-400M, if successful will meet the changing needs of militaries around the world. Already, allies who have relied on Lockheed and the C-130 are poised to replace aging C-130s with the A-400M.

I'm no fan of the idea that the U.S. military would someday be a major "importer" of commercial and military aircraft. I'm especially not a fan of the idea that the U.S. military fleet might someday consist of mostly "foreign" aircraft. Yet the lack of innovation in the U.S. has lead to the eventual pathway of our military consisting of "foreign" aircraft.

Congratulations to Airbus on their success today in history.

Rest in Peace Lockheed.

Rest in Peace C-130, and Thank You for your service for so many years. The men and women associated with this wonderful aircraft will remember the C-130 as a "Once Great Airplane" and Lockheed as a "Once Great Leader in Aviation".

I predict that the Airbus A-400M is the "C-130 of the future".

118th AES Retired

A400M first flight

The beleaguered airlifter A400M has successfully taken off from San Pablo Airport near Seville, Spain at 10:15 local time for its 1st flight, amid talks between ministers of nations which have ordered the A400M to resolve the surging cost.

The A400M's 1st flight was delayed by 10 minutes due to "some glicthes with the instrumentation", Airbus' head of flight test Fernando Alonso said.

"For the time being everything is going fine, and the crew is comfortable with the aeroplane," Alonso said.

The first A400M, MSN001, is scheduled to land from 12:30 local time onwards.

Source: http://www.airwaysaviationnews.com/

Airbus’ A400 military transport takes to the air for the first time

Posted: December 11th, 2009 | By Paul Ash

It flies!

At 10:15 local time this morning in Seville in Spain, the Airbus A400M military transport prototype took to the air for the first time.

For the sake of prosterity, the test pilots were Chief Test Pilot Military, Edward “Ed†Strongman, 60, as captain and Experimental Test Pilot Ignacio “Nacho†Lombo, 43, in the co-pilot’s seat. There were also four engineers on board – Jean-Philippe Cottet, Eric Isorce, Didier Ronceray and Gerard Leskerpit – who will among them look after the powerplants, aircraft systems and handling qualities of the aircraft during the test program.

According to the Airbus press release, the crew have logged more than 31 000 hours of flight time between them.

Well, the upshot is that the aircraft has made that leap from something that had only ever flown on paper to actual flight.

Too late for the South African Air Force, though, who, having seen their much-anticipated replacement for the ageing C-130s snatched from under their noses just a few weeks ago, will now have to content themselves by watching the world’s newest military freighter go through its paces. C’est la vie.

Source: http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/wanderer/2009/12/11/airbus-a400-military-transport-takes-to-the-air-for-the-first-time/

New military Airbus A400-M takes inaugural flight

After years of delay Airbus's A400-M military transport plane has finally taken to the skies for its inaugural flight.

Chris Bockman reports.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8407641.stm

For the latest from Airbus on the A400-M see: http://www.airbusmilitary.com/

Well, so what? They finally flew their airplane. Boeing will finally fly their airplane soon. A C-5 ain't a C-141 ain't a C-130 ain't a C-123 ain't a C-7. They each got their niche. The record of multi-role airlifters ain't so hot. So a C-5 can theoretically land on dirt. So a C-17 can theoretically reverse taxi. Sure. Develop from scratch a price-competitive competitor to a re-engined G-222 a.k.a C-27? Hmmm

Lost when flying on exchange duty with the USAF, we heard down here that he lost control of the airplane and I believe all were lost.

His name was Reynolds I thought there was a posting some time ago on here but it does not come up on search.

Can any one throw any light on nthis matter.

Thanks

Col

Recalling from some CRM information and schoolhouse papers and memory...spring of '92 a SOLL trainer near Pope AFB with a "stand-up IP" tactics guru aboard. "Idle hands are the devil's workshop", time-to-kill before "darkness" and a simulated 3-engines maximum performance tactical climb to be practiced. Airspeed was allowed to decrease below Vmca and further to "out of aileron too" and control was lost. Final nail was a "knock-it-off" type response that saw symmetrical thrusts reduced toward or to idle. We do know that there is a significant difference between power-on stall speed and power-off stall speed and the consequences of stalling one or both wings with significant yaw and/or rudder deflection.

This was within a few months of the Evansville Indiana accident where incorrect rudder application during high power asymmetrical thrust maneuver resulted in a loss-of-control accident.

As I recall MAC came down shortly thereafter and said no more simulated two-engines in the airplane, and no more simulated three engines takeoffs in the airplane, and less copilot three-engines training.

As I recall. its been quite a few years...I personally knew one of the pilots in a seat...a very smart guy with a technical education; extremely surprised that this happened to him. I believe that the exchange officer was not in a seat, as I recall.

I'm going back a few year's on this one, but I seem to recall that the USAF C-9's and 737 VIP aircraft had "flight mechanic's" as part of the crew compliment. What was the AFSC and/or background to be aircrew in this capacity? I also recall (circa 1990-92) some heavy Pentagon in-fighting about placing navigator's on the above mentioned aircraft, whenever they were to fly into so called "haphazard" theatre's. LOL! What was a nav going to do? Sit in the jump seat with a clipboard and a stopwatch?

Kurt

Well, a navigator would know what to do. Are you a navigator?

Hmmm...if you want to spend the money, you can probably buy a operator's guide

http://www.esscoaircraft.com/Litton_Aero_Products_LTN_51_p/31210.htm

Its been quite a while, but as I recall the 72 was just an improved 51 with a couple more features. We had both kinds in addition to several with LTN-92. Generally, you should have as still or motionless a platform as possible for an accurate alignment. Just because you could get an alignment while starting engines would not necessarily mean that you should. I can't imagine moving the machine during ins alignment being a smart thing to do.

What does your flight manual say about it?

looking at some (but not all) recent dash-ones, it appears that they deleted the sub step: "rudder boost pressure - checked" on the flaps retraction step. Wonder if there is a reason for this? The books do caution still in section 5 about full or abrupt rudder inputs with high boost. Maybe that substep was never in some of the manuals? It was in the L-382 manuals and the ones Lockheed sells the foreign customers, as I recall.

You know, the short-sightedness of people kill me. Do you not realize that for the past 3 years, this program has been in developmental test??? It's your damn job to identify what mx procedures work & don't work, then validate procedures to make it work better. I've beat my head in the wall with some folks on the AF side out there that things don't appear out of a big modification program with zero bugs. The lack of foresight & stubborness of some people are having awfull effects on this program. I kept hearing gripes from AFOTEC & AMC T&E folks that this mod doesn't do anything to make me go faster or carry more. No SH!T, that wasn't the idea in the first place! Go find yourself a C-17. I understand now that there are units out there having to park airplanes because they can't get repairs to, or replacements for engine gages or flight instruments. That is one of the primary focuses of the AMP...increase realiability & maintainability of the instrumentation...and it does this very effectively. You want to see band-aid? Just wait til you see what they'll have to do to the fleet if AMP cancels. You can't navigate or talk your way through Europe anymore without an AMP modification on the legacy fleet. Other major airspaces are coming soon. How do you replace a fleet of over 200 in a span of 5 years if you don't think you can spend a little money right now??

Ok, I'm tired of typing, but I can go on a while bashing the AF incompetence on the AMP. In two weeks, the AR ANG pilots (who haven't flown the AMP) can operate it better than MOST AF pilots who have been flying it for 3 years. How's that for dedication on the part of the Edwards "team"? I hate to imply individual people being at fault (although there are a few) in this...it's primarily a leadership issue out there.

Hmmm...so developmental cost has been 1.5 billion dollars; that's 1,500 million dollars if I remember right, and the cost per airplane to do the mod is nine million dollars. What exactly is it that the current fleet--at perhaps Dyess, for example--can't do in their present configuration?

Is that right--that they are not allowed to fly in Europe? Anywhere in Europe? This is incredible! Almost as incredible as the amount of money and time spent on the AMP program, with almost nothing tangible to show for it! Off with their heads!

What exactly is the time frame of the whole AMP scheme? From original idea to present? First I heard of it was more than eight years ago. They can't figure this stuff out in eight years? Must be tougher than rocket science...or brain surgery...(maybe they need some).

My$0.02

Now there are 3 orphan acft, , what is to become of them?

What a waste,

RZ

...and a simulator. When I first heard about "AMP", I thought "a lot of money for marginal capability improvement; not much bang for a lot of bucks". I betcha most of the work being done trash haulin' these days could be done just fine by "A" models with a couple cheap INS or GPS sets installed...

That picture was painted on a panel in the cockpit of 73-1597 or 1598 when they were assigned to the 374th. Maybe had a Filipino artist do it. Security not such a big deal then; remember the furniture store truck coming out to the airplanes to unload Narra bars and papasan chairs etc. etc. Tac treasures. Them were the days...

I know most of us has attended a survival school. I went through basic, water, Arctic and the famous jungle one at Clark. I am sure most of us had one are two unusual experiences. I know I did and I thought I would tell it and maybe get some input from the rest of you. Eight of us were sitting a round the campfire at the jungle survival school and we were eating our C rations and a lieutenant did not want his peanut butter so he threw it in the fire a few minutes later it exploded and blew peanut butter all over me. That night we went to sleep on our sleeping mat I believe every rat in the jungle came after me. You remember the Nets we had over us well a rat got under the net and started jumping with the net over him. In my mind I thought it was the biggest stake in the jungle I beat it to death with my flashlight and then found out it was a rat. All the time I was beating it I was hollering very loud I woke up everyone in our group and most of us set by the campfire the rest of the night.

Hmmm, by the time I went through in '71, we were sleeping in hammocks slung between a couple of trees. I recall awakening when a very large banana tree nearby fell over in the middle of the night. It was early in rainy season, but pretty wet and muddy. I had a K2-B and the "combat boots" they issued me at OTS. Envied some who had jungle fatigues and jungle boots. Actually had to grab on to shrubs and branches to get up some of the slippery hills. No traction with the boots I had. Yes, the rats were out and about at night in our campsite. The instructor told us to be careful about discarding food, and they had to move the campsites pretty frequently on account of rats.

There was a cfisher in 17th whn I was there 70's...remember him because I got three responses for the price of one on the startup checklist: "Gen's ON; Battery; No Press"; as I recall...

If you'd have been down around Howard '90 - '91 or so, you could have seen it its USCG colors.

Along with the "real" AWACS and USN Hawkeyes. The Customs Service even had one there...an Electra/P-3 with a dish on top. Lots of "AWACS". All of us were fightin' the "war on dope" among other things. Are we winnin' yet?

Hmmm...these discussions about obsolete pubs and OPSEC kind of reminds me of the safety "privileged information" message reports used to be broadcast on AIGs to the universe, and using cell phones aboard airplanes. You can't stop it unless you use draconian control measures and that ain't gonna happen, so the point is it ain't truly important...if it was, it would be controlled (maybe)

SamMcGowan wrote:

Fred wrote:

Let\'s see, the last time I saw a C-47/DC-3 I\'m pretty sure it had retractable landing gear. A PA-12 is fixed gear. But gear has nothing to do with lift, but rather with drag.Gear retraction may affect CG, depending on how it retracts, but that is taken into consideration when performance data is established by the manufacturer. Lift is created by an airfoil and the only airfoils on a conventional fixed-wing airplane are the wings, horizontal stabilizer and vertical stabilizer. Ailerons, elevators and rudders are also airfoils but their purpose is to affect the forces on the main airfoils. Lift is produced by the low-pressure are created on the top of the wing by air flowing over it faster than going beneath. The horizontal stabilizer on all fixed-wing airplanes is designed so that the low-pressure area is on the bottom and thus forcing the tail downward. A tail-stall will cause the nose to pitch down. \"Flying wings\" such as the B-2 are one big airfoil. The C-130 is conventional and all lift is generated by the wing.

I don\'t know why Lockheed chose to use Percent of MAC for its charts since all that is needed is the actual ARM. Perhaps it has to do with the size of the charts. For that matter, they could have used feet instead of inches as the reference points as it doesn\'t matter which is used for computations.

Lengthening the fuselage on an airplane may affect where the CG will end up - if the plug is forward of the wings it will tend to be more noseheavy - but the CG limits are going to be the same at any given gross weight.

Hmmm... Yes, I\'m pretty sure the C-47 has a retractable gear. Last time I rode one was 1972, so its been a while. I know a PA-12 is fixed gear conventional gear or \"tail dragger\". Did you ever fly a tail dragger? I did. But that too has been more than 30 years ago. I do recall picking the tail up sometime after starting takeoff run, and relaxing some forward pressure on the stick to allow the tail to drop a little and establish takeoff attitude as takeoff speed is reached. I\'m not sure what force could cause the tail to rise when I did this. Not gravity; I\'m sure. Not thrust...well, maybe reaction to the propeller stream being deflected by the elevator? That\'s a possibility. Drag? Not likely. Hmmm...lift? Well; I suppose that\'s about all that\'s left. Maybe there\'s such a thing as negative lift? Or lift in a negative direction?

\"...The wing on any airplane (rotors on a helicopter) are the only part that actually \"flies\" (produces lift) and the balance point is on it. The tail exerts a downward moment to hold the nose up and does not produce lift. \"

Hmmm...conventional gear aircraft (C-47, PA-12, etc.) ?

navonfire wrote:

Quick note: The SIB is still running, and the AIB hasn\'t started. None of us are supposed to be speculating/discussing this until the results/reports are released.

Us? You must have a mouse in your pocket...

I\'ve had the unpleasant duty of being present at the site of a fresh C-130 crash to initiate the safety investigation, but that was many, many years ago.

I can appreciate your concern for protecting the innocent from wild speculation, and the classified from unauthorized disclosure and/or compromise. There doesn\'t seem to be any classified information depicted; just a wrecked airplane.

Nowadays, if it can be seen or heard, it can be recorded, digitized, and made accessible to a bushman in the Kalahari via wireless internet. Thats the way it is.

Should be plenty of expert witnesses, voice recordings, and data recordings. \"They\" must have determined that \"they\" had sufficient evidence for the investigation, and that the difficulty/danger of securing the site warranted destroying the wreckage.

I\'m sure that the results of the investigations will be made public, to the extent allowed, in due time.