The Captain's Flight Blog

Horrible Fireplane Crash

2009-07-23T15:25:00.004+08:00

A dramatic change of mood from my previous post, this video shows a C-130 experiencing in-flight structural failure.

As the aircraft releases the fire retardant material, its wings snaps off. Probably an aircraft that didn't go through proper inspection or maintenance.

All 3 crew members died.

An interesting quote by a commenter on Youtube. May or may not be true but the circumstances mentioned does sound like something that would cause this disaster.

it belonged to hawkins and powers avaition in greybull wyoming, a friend of mine worked as a mechanic there,the c130a had wing spar design flaws but h&p were not notified of them until after this,this plane was drug out of a military junk yard by the gov. & given to h&p,that plane should never have ben put back in the air,my friend now works minden air on well built lockheed p2v airtankers that underwent extreme inspection,if i wanted to travel i'd be working on them to as a mechanic - doubleslottedflaps

Very well done Emergency Landing

2009-04-22T22:37:00.006+08:00

In Outer Haven, Florida, a home-built plane encountered engine trouble. The pilot, 22 year old Kyle Davis managed to land on a road.

I particularly like how quickly he was able to align the plane with the road. The landing was exceptionally smooth as well.

And that fat guy was trying his best to be helpful like 'that field?' 'that field?' or 'watch the wing watch the wing'. Funny fat guys.

Of course this did not occur in Outer Haven; Winter Haven.

(Source: ABC Action News)

Makeshift 737 Cockpit Layout

2009-04-07T10:56:00.003+08:00

Edmund shared with me this interesting set-up that his friend made for practice purposes.

I like the ingenious use of hooks to mount the forward and aft overhead panel.

Epic Malaysia Airlines Piloting

2009-04-03T00:47:00.001+08:00

Nice compilation of what-if moments made in FS2004, with great camerawork. By manbird12000

Fokker 50 Landing Gear Action

2009-03-31T17:03:00.003+08:00

Tasty landing gear deployment and touch-down action. Thanks for the videos dcoolcrap.

Pictures from an F-22 [FS2004]

2009-03-31T16:33:00.003+08:00

Was taxiing around the KLIA taxiway looking for interesting planes to stalk. And in front of me was my first victim. A Royal Brunei A319.

I missed a taxiway because I was distracted by cooking and when I came back I saw the Airbus had sneakily rolled on to runway 32R.

I easily caught up to the bugger.

As I was feverishly trying to match the A319's speed, (the autopilot was buggy) I spotted this Singapore Airlines 747 flying at some distance away.

A giant plane would be more impressive than this A319 I thought. So I left the Royal Brunei craft in my wake.

Only to realise I was chasing the wrong airplane.

The image above is a wide-angle shot. Best seen close up. It simulates a head turn.

Suddenly the Qantas 747 lowered its flaps. I didn't tune to air traffic so I had no idea what it was trying to do.

This is the F-22 with afterburners seemingly on. I was still struggling to maintain speed and heading with the 747 at the time.

Then I got bored and ate lunch.

Fokker 50 with Harrier escort [FS2004]

2009-03-31T13:30:00.005+08:00

Took off from Miri airport in a Harrier (product of IRIS Simulations) while tailing a F50 travelling to an unknown decision. (At the time I didn't think of tuning the radio to Miri airport)

Here are a few pics taken from the cockpit and a spot plane.

Before I knew it, the F50 was already on final approach to Bintulu airport.

A touchdown has been made.

Strangely, after losing sight of the F50 for about 2 minutes when doing a go-around, it failed to appear anywhere on the runway or the apron. Must be the way Project AI handles things.

Rainbow Seats

2009-03-10T16:45:00.001+08:00

I like this MAS interior color scheme. I was going back soon after Chinese New Year. It was a Boeing 737 flying from Miri to KL.

Curious little panel

2009-03-02T23:36:00.003+08:00

I managed to take a photo of this curious panel that is situated in the foreward section of the fuselage. I always wondered what this thing is for. Seems like it controls lights and background music among other things.

Click for a closer view.

Big Engine Big Pilot

2009-03-02T23:18:00.003+08:00

It's a nice big pilot being backdropped by a big engine. I sat on that blue-color-themed A320 that day. I assume that is the nice large man in charge of the flight. Judging by his bigness.

Incidentally, the pilot that came out before the big pilot went in was small kechik. I was wondering why he was so kechik until I realised that it was a woman pilot. That's something I don't notice everyday. Salutations!

Twin Otter making a go-around

2009-03-02T23:08:00.003+08:00

Just when I thought this plane was gonna touch its grippy rubber wheels on the asphalt, it decided to take off and leave. =| THANKS, man.

I wonder if this is a practice procedure. Prior to this I think I saw this plane make a few go-arounds. Then again it could be just another plane of the same model.

Air Asia A320 making a gentle landing

2009-03-02T23:06:00.001+08:00

That felt really smooth. Even from this perspective. <3

Dark-nosed 737 coming in for a landing in Miri airport

2009-03-02T23:00:00.002+08:00

This is the same aircraft coming on to the apron. I wonder why it is dark-nosed.

One of the first few airplane videos show with the awesome Powershot S3. 30fps at 640x480 and awesome audio.

Flight 1549 Retrieval

2009-01-28T23:12:00.003+08:00

Judging by the loss of the left engine, it would appear the plane would have rolled to the right for a moment due to drag from the remaining engine.

Surprisingly the front engine cowling remains intact while the parts in the rear part of the engine seems to be the parts that are most badly affected.

It could possibly be due to the nature of that specific part of the engine in which I mean the engine cowling, was built to withstand the most damage. This is because in the event of a fan blade disconnecting from the engine's core, it would not penetrate the engine cowling and potentially slam through the fuselage of the aircraft hence causing explosive decompression at high altitudes resulting in the death of all passengers.

US Airways Flight 1549 Hudson river splashdown

2009-01-17T14:47:00.005+08:00

The way I wrote the title almost made it sound like a party.

Yesterday, (January 15th in the US) a US Airways flight bearing the registration N106US crash-landed into the Hudson river in New York. Coastguard crash video before.

Approximately around the 2:00 mark, you are able to see the splashdown of the plane. At 2:40 you are able to see passengers scrambling (in a relatively organized manner) on to the wing and on to emergency inflatable slides.

As this is happening, the plane is slowly drifting with the river's current. Local ferries were quick to respond and immediately went towards the downed plane to rescue any survivors.

Around the 6 minute mark, as the plane was drifting towards the incoming ferry seemingly about to crash into each other, the ferry captain carefully maneuvered the ferry backwards to match the drifting speed of the aircraft.

At this time, moe ferries came around the left side of the plane and began collecting people who were standing on the left side wing of the plane.

All the while, the plane was sinking at a rapid pace. This incident would have been more disastrous if it water-landed anywhere else that is far from civilization.

Ultimately, the assistance provided by local ferries proved vital in making this incident go without any loss to life. Great job ferrymen!

Notice at about 3:12, a person slipped off the tip of the right wing. Thankfully, someone else helped this person up.

The flight's captain was Chesley B. Sullenberger III, 57, of Danville, California, a former United States Air Force captain who once served as a fighter pilot and flew F-4 Phantom II's from 1973 to 1980.

He was awarded the key to the city for his commendable and heroic actions in managing to water-land a plane safely.

The cause of the crash is due to multiple bird strikes causing both engines to flame-out. The aircraft flown was an Airbus A320 powered by CFM-56 engines. All 155 on board survived.

Trivia:

This is the 2nd water-landing that didn't have any fatalities. The first was back in 1968, on Japan Airlines Flight 2 piloted by Captain Kohei Asoh. When asked about the cause of the crash, he humbly replied, "As you Americans say, I fucked up."

He took full responsibility for the accident and refused to blame anyone else or any other circumstances. Back in Japan, Aso was sent to retrain as a co-pilot. Such a frank acceptance of blame has come to be known as the "Asoh Defense".

Pos Malaysia B732 Crash 13/01/07

2009-01-13T14:08:00.003+08:00

Hail Ignatius of airliners.net for this intriguing photo.

No one injured. Only 4 ppl on board.

The crash happened at 1,500m at the beginning of runway 25, which is about 80 m from centre of taxiway and 87.5m from centre of runway. The plane also turned 180 degrees before coming to a stop on the grass plains of the runway strip, missing the surface of the runway.

- The Sunday Post

I'd really like a hands on tale direct from the pilot. Captain Hartono. According to photographer Delwin Atot in Airliners.net, The aircraft was operating as a mail courier for Pos Malaysia Bhd.

At first I thought it was dirty due to the crash. But:

Theres another great photo on the Sunday post. have yet to see other papers.

A disturbingly happy man.

Chinese newspaper, don't know which, I cant read.

Another angle from the Sunday post.

All pictures belong to respective news agency

Upon closer inspection of the planes structure, there seems to be a wire which seems to be supporting the vertical stabilizer (The vertical stabilizer is the yaw stabilizer for the airplane; it keeps the nose of the airplane (as seen from above) pointed into the relative wind. (reference)

Any of you flyboys know what the wire is for? Curious here.

Speaking of relative wind, I realise when in MSflight simulator, when I enable flyby mode, i see that my plane is not travelling straight into the relative wind, theres a drifting motion, skidding, if you will. How do real pilots detect this? Is it that ball thing?

More pictures of this plane (PK-RPX):

Here you can see the previous design of the plane lightly covered in white. Picture taken by Delwin Atot.

PK-RPX ready to be scrapped. I wish I could purchase that fuselage and put it in my yard.

A photo of PK-RPX in FedEx clone colors and before its design became all white. This is the design you could faintly see two photos above.

Crosswind Landings

2009-01-13T13:48:00.002+08:00

Crosswind landings are always so breathtaking to watch.

This is a pretty smooth landing right here:

This next one, not so:

But take comfort in this next one for it's from a flight simulator, it has convincing camera-work. Is this from FSX? The camera-work looks much nicer than in FS9.

One Mighty Butt-Ugly plane

2009-01-13T13:13:00.003+08:00

The Dreamlifter. A plane built specifically for the transportation of the 787 Dreamliner's fuselage. The picture above is of it not yet painted.

Here is a more polished version of it. Looks slightly nicer.

The 787 has been called the 7-late-7 due to the many delays that befell its production. The first airplane was supposed to be delivered in 2008 but Boeing blames the Machinist Strike as the cause for the delay.

Can't say I like the design of the 787 too much. The 777 is still pretty pretty though.

Airbus A320 disaster Flight 296 1988

2009-01-13T12:49:00.005+08:00

I found the sound of the increase in thrust towards the end of the video to be quite creepy.

Both pilots Captain Asseline and First Officer Mazière survived. 3 people died due to smoke. Pilot was sentenced to imprisonment for about a year. Today, the captain, Michel Asseline has lost his French pilot license for 8
years. He is now flying in Australia.

I feel that the sentence is unfair. Its not like he purposely crashed the plane for the heck of it. I'm pretty sure he did his best to try and recover the plane.

He was surprised when he watched the video to discover that the landing gear was only about 30ft off the ground when the altimeter showed 100ft.

Furthermore, in 1998, about a decade after the crash, new evidence shows a person removing the aircraft Flight Data Recorder. It is believed that the FDR that was shown in court isn't the same one from the crash.

Photo of man removing the FDR and more details here.

Conspiracy theorists suggest that Airbus was trying to cover up the faults of the aircraft. It was the first Fly-By-Wire commercial jet after all. This failure could mean Airbus would have an economic crisis on their hands.

* OEB 19/1: Engine Acceleration Deficiency at Low Altitude

This OEB noted that the engines may not respond to throttle input at low altitude.

* OEB 06/2: Baro-Setting Cross Check

This OEB stated that the barometric altitude indication on the A320 did not always function properly.

A month before the incident, these reports were released but the Air France crew wasn't aware of them.

These malfunctions led some theorists to believe that Airbus is to blame for the crash, not Captain Asseline.

Scratching a billion dollar plane

2009-01-13T11:49:00.003+08:00

What you see here is VMU testing. It determines the speed in which the plane can safely take off under various load conditions.

As the plane takes flight, the pilot checks the speed at which it flew and makes that the minimum take off speed with that weight. Please feel free to correct me. I was merely guessing.

Almost Physically Impossible

2009-01-13T11:18:00.003+08:00

HanX of the Flydamnit Forums shared with us this video.

It might as well pass off as a helicopter.

I wonder if the color blind rule is applicable to these light aircraft. I think I can fly those. *sob*

Dramatic Morning Landing in KLIA B734 MAS

2009-01-13T11:15:00.002+08:00

Dramatic B734 Landing in KLIA Early in the Morning - Click here for this week’s top video clips

Here I sit upon a MAS Boeing 737-400. Notice the awesome condensation effects and the vortices.

Recorded with my PSP camera. 30fps. 480 by something resolution.

Ben's Boeing Back-to-KL Bash 26/02/07

2009-01-12T22:58:00.002+08:00

No it wasnt that foggy. Just condensation on my window. Whats cool about this plane was its taxi speed. It was frighteningly fast when it zoomed across miri's tiny apron to park. Airasia personnel in the terminal even stood up and peeked to see if everything was alright. I should've taken a video. It was awesome.

Runway 02. U can even see them PAPI lights (I think thats what theyre called)

Point Of Interest

It looked better through my window. Prolly too low a resolution.

Don't worry, it's definitely not fuel seeping through the wings and corroding the wing surface.

Right?

I'm not sure why the captain decided to use spoilers on descent but he did. What are the conditions that spoilers be used? Also, when the spoiler snapped up, a horn sounded in the cabin.

Why?

Duct Tape on Critical-Looking Engine mounting

2009-01-12T22:34:00.002+08:00

On an AirAsia B737 one day, I saw this duct-tape looking thing on a part on the engine mounting which seems to be a cover of some sort.

At first glance it looked pretty hillarious and yet worrying at the same time.

The Flydamnit crew cleared the misconception up pretty quickly.

not a good practice.but its not for engine mounting,just to hold the panel there.
-mcfird

It is called hi speed tape. Always used on airplane. Suitable for varying temperature,pressure,density and speed. It is as thick as an aluminium can.
-afifazhanee

Good to know it's not as frail as once thought.

Ben's Boeing Back-to-Miri Bash 16/02/07

2009-01-12T22:21:00.003+08:00

So back I go for CNY new year. I arrived KLIA at around 5.30pm. Then I went to the no-checkin line and then realised that I have a knife in my bag. Omg omg omg i dun wanna lose my pretty knife. Then i rendezvous with cousins. One of them suggested I take the blade out and keep the knife chassis. Yay. Safe. Anyway, after entering the departure lounge, went to the end of the terminal again and looked at the sky.

Then went back to gate A5 to wait. Saw a 737 coming in the gate but took a long time for it to actually park. Ground crew rushed to the plane. I didnt see that ground crew guy who directs the plane where to steer. You know those guys. And I think the pilot was waiting for that guy before making his move. After about 45 seconds the pilot seemed to screw it and just went on with the parking. It was good though. Right on the line.

Then we got word that our flight was delayed. So on to gate A9 to wait. Our 8 o clock flight become a 9 o clock flight. After much waiting yay the plane arrives. Then into it i go. I got lucky seat 14.

UNLIMITED LEGROOMOAARRR!!!!

View out my window.

a 777 was queing up at the runway. A heck lot of planes were landing at the time.

after the runway was clear, the b777 started to taxi on to the runway. the extra flashy bright impressive blinding lights are switched on

after the 777 tookoff, an a320 taxied onto its spot. Again we were waiting for a plane to land.

The remainder of the flight was boring. I couldnt see a freaking thing.

My somewhat delicious meal. And the applepee juice is yumderful. Made me thirsty though. Vera thirsty.

Landing was freaky coz i couldnt see a thing. Are we on our sides? Is the ground near? Why are those lights so freaking close? Oh wait. Its not. Gasp it is! NO! No its not.

Ben's Boeing Back-to-KL Bash 29/01/07

2009-01-12T22:08:00.004+08:00

Bash as in birthday bash. Well since we're all flight enthusiasts, I'll post some photos of my trip back.

Here we see a view out of my window from seat 5A. That's Miri airport out there. I THINK. I CAN'T TELL. CAN YOU?

We have liftoff.

Notice the freakish hum during climb. Wtf IS that noise? Hopefully nothing serious.

This here is a view of Tanjung Seafood Restaurant Miri from the air

This is the tasteful meal that I had while watching a movie on my mp4 player.

Shortly after that, Captain Cantmakeoutwhathesaid introduced himself and first officer (first officer right?) Lawrence and informed us of current altitude which was 31,000 ft and crusing at an average speed of 800km/h distance to KL to be 1,600km and therefore flight time to be 2 hours. "We'll be heading for pekan and turning left towards KLIA..."

For the remainder of the flight I had to watch Rat Race on my mp4 player or stare vacantly at these two round circular objects. Boobs. Not boobs. Boobs? No. Support structures used for putting up those disabled passengers cradles or whatever the heck they're called.

Between movie lulls, I opened up the window to check on our altitude and weather. Rewarded with a sea of clouds. Yum.

During descent I again saw more of natures work of art.

We land on runway 32R (if my MSFS knowledge serves me correctly)

My puter shouts at cargohandlers

Visit Malaysia 2007 Stickers

2009-01-12T21:51:00.003+08:00

I once complained about the 'Visit Malaysia Year 2007' "stickers" on some of our planes.

Who wouldn't? Look at these:

(All images courtesy of Airliners.net)

So what was my problem? Being a shameless-self-proclaimed designer, I was unsatisfied with the effort they put into making that sign. What I imagined happen was:

Gov : Hi. Could you do something to make people want to visit Malaysia in 2007?
MAS : Uhm. Sure. We'll get on it.

MAS : Could we get someone to make people want to visit Malaysia in 2007?
Guy : Sure. I'll get on it.

*opens Microsoft Word*

Visit Malaysia 2007

*prints a million copies to stick on planes*

MAS Hygiene

2009-01-12T21:31:00.004+08:00

I know people who hate our local airline carriers for reasons such as food and hygiene.

I say they don't know bad until they've seen these:

This are photos of the level of cleanliness in America's United Airlines. Its an isolated case but its still no excuse to show a plane this horribly maintained.

Visit this article for more details and photos.

For the level of cleanliness MAS maintains, I offer a generously-sized clump of respect.

The Malaysian Airlines 737-800

2009-01-12T21:23:00.003+08:00

I spotted a MAS 738 on Airliners.net and was pretty surprised that we actually had a 738.

I was curious as to where I can see this Boeing and why do we have one.

The all-knowing AlFly of Flydamnit Forum kindly explained to me the rundown.

"The B738 were wet leased from a European company to do some charter and long thin routes to China but the deal didnt go well and contract was cancelled .(Done during MD Ahmad Fuad regime)."

Now I know.

The Drawing of Planes

2009-01-12T21:15:00.001+08:00

Guess the model!

Click on them for a larger picture

Awesome Airbus pilot

2009-01-12T20:43:00.003+08:00

This is a video showing a TAP Airbus A310 being flown around like a fighter jet.

These manoeuvres were intensely trained before execution. The plane was also given a maintenence check prior to the airshow. Safety first, gentlemen.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen

2009-01-12T15:18:00.008+08:00

Welcome to this aviation blog.

It belongs to a wannabe-pilot-but-can't-because-he's-FUCKING-colorblind.

Here, the blog will be sharing with you his air travels and observations along the way.

He flies pretty often, at least once in 3 months. He also do a bunch of aviation-related animations once in a while.

Here's something embarassing from about half a decade back.

Here's something less embarassing. Something a bit more recent. He flew around in FS9 captured with FRAPS and edited in Adobe Premiere. Added unneccesarily epic music into it and came up with this:

And this is something else he did during internship. Had time he says.