Aviation Videos.

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
"Cookie" - essentially what would be called a barrel-bomb these days.

No streamlining, no fins, no great attempt at aiming - a ton and a half of HE in a thin-walled container - just essentially unloaded over an urban area, partly with the intention of opening roofs to allow easier entry for the following incendiaries.

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They still turn up.

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BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Who's up for a chopper ride on Mars ? ...
I'm constantly stunned at the technology we're seeing here. I still can't get my head around the fact that the flight itself will have to be completely autonomous ... trying to fly a helicopter with a 20 minute delay between applying a control and then seeing the result isn't something anyone would contemplate. :eek:

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Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Mention of 'Overstrand' in the Holidays thread reminded me of the first RAF aircraft with a powered turret.

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Not for the fainthearted.
 

joshua

Well-Known Forumite
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"Navy Wings’ Sea Fury T.20 made a precautionary forced landing in a field next to RNAS Yeovilton following a problem with the engine on a routine training flight this afternoon. Both pilots are safe and well and have been taken to Yeovil district Hospital for a precautionary check-up. The cause is under investigation and both the CAA and Air Accident Investigation Branch have been informed. No further information is available at this time."
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
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"Navy Wings’ Sea Fury T.20 made a precautionary forced landing in a field next to RNAS Yeovilton following a problem with the engine on a routine training flight this afternoon. Both pilots are safe and well and have been taken to Yeovil district Hospital for a precautionary check-up. The cause is under investigation and both the CAA and Air Accident Investigation Branch have been informed. No further information is available at this time."
Foregate Street - early 1950s.

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joshua

Well-Known Forumite
Looks like there are going to be a few more wokkas in the air soon
U.K. reaches $2 billion deal to buy 14 Boeing Chinook helicopters
April 19, 2021 at 11:00 pm Updated April 20, 2021 at 7:47 am
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The United Kingdom will buy 14 Boeing Chinook helicopters for an estimated $2 billion. (Photo: Lennart Preiss/Getty Images Europe)
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By
Tony Capaccio
Bloomberg
The U.K. and the Pentagon reached agreement on a $2 billion sale of 14 Chinook helicopters built by Boeing Co., as well as engines, machine guns, radar and missile-jamming equipment for the choppers, according to officials and documents.

The agreement was confirmed in a previously undisclosed March 25 letter from the U.K.’s embassy in Washington that paves the way for signed contracts. But the letter also indicates that the U.K. wants to delay delivery of the helicopters by as much as three years, in part due to impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The letter serves as “acknowledgment that the UKG wishes to extend its Chinook Vertical Heavy Lift capability by proceeding with the acquisition of quantity fourteen (14) new build Chinook H-47(ER) helicopters,” according to the text, referring to the U.K. government. “However, as a direct result of the worldwide impact of COVID-19, the UKG has had to reconsider the expenditure profile of this project.”

Even with a delay, the move is a boost to Chicago-based Boeing, which has been seeking to line up new customers for Chinooks built at its plant outside Philadelphia to help guard against a potential closing of the facility after the U.S. Army sought to scale back its orders.

Then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy personally pressed for the U.K. sale and another for 10 choppers to the United Arab Emirates during the Trump administration. Boeing remains in discussion with the UAE over a potential sale, according to a company official who asked not to be identified as talks continue.

In its letter, the U.K. said it wanted to minimize any negative price impact from the delayed deliveries.

“Work is at an advanced stage to commence the procurement of a number of new Chinook helicopters to replace older airframes in the fleet,” a spokeswoman for the U.K. embassy in Washington said in an email. “The delivery schedule and exact costs for the new Chinook helicopters are to be confirmed, but it is expected delivery will be completed before the end of 2030.”

The U.K. is “eager to proactively engage to understand and attempt to mitigate the price and schedule impacts of the three-year deferral while recognizing there are many programmatic and industrial base factors which need to be considered, some of which are outside of the scope of this Letter of Offer and Acceptance,” according to the letter.

In a statement, Boeing said it “has a strong relationship” with the Royal Air Force, and “we look forward to building on that partnership as the H-47 Chinook Extended Range procurement process continues.”

The U.K. took delivery of its first Chinook in November 1980. Boeing maintains the U.K.’s existing fleet of 60 older Chinook helicopters, “work that supports more than 450 highly skilled jobs across the U.K.,” Boeing said in its statement.

In the U.S., potential sales agreements with the U.K. and U.A.E. were seen as key to gaining congressional support for an Army budget proposal — two years in a row — curtailing purchases of the latest Chinook model because the Army already has a surplus.

Cost savings

The Army’s five-year budget plan called for saving $962 million from fiscal 2021 through fiscal 2024 by cutting 28 of 68 previously planned Chinooks, shifting much of the money into two new reconnaissance and transport helicopter programs.

Both House and Senate appropriations panels rejected that approach in their 2020 and 2021 spending measures, directing the Army to buy five more of the choppers this year. That came after bipartisan lobbying by lawmakers from Pennsylvania, where the helicopter is built, and New Jersey and Delaware, where many workers live.

Army officials are mulling for a third consecutive year whether to propose the truncation again in the fiscal 2022 budget, an official said.

Boeing needs to build 18 helicopters per year to keep the supply chain and skill sets intact, said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Virginia, citing company data. Boeing’s internal projections “indicate production levels below sustainable beginning in 2023” and “at that point previously booked foreign sales and Army work will be trailing off,” he added.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I've often thought that flight refuelling should be a bit more automated - it's all a bit Heath Robinson.

Some of the Tu 95s have an extending probe, so you just have to be reasonably in line with the basket and within a few feet behind it, then you can extend the probe into it, rather than having to drive the whole aircraft forwards at just the right moment.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
I just started to mow my lawn a few minutes ago when the Red Arrows flew directly over my head in V formation. Really quite low, scared the living shit out of me as I didn't hear them coming !!! Bloody spectacular though. Heading East. No question of getting a pix, simply no time. :o:)

PS

Somebody in the village Facebook group got this shot ....

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BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
In 1982 I was anchored off Port Stanley in the Falklands. The war had just finished and nearby was another of our company ships, a 26,000 ton product carrier (it was the first ship I had sailed on after joining CP Ships in 1976.) She was carrying AVGAS and had spent most of the war way out in the South Atlantic, well out of range of anything the Argentines could deploy (for obvious reasons.) She would top up RFA ships now and again, which would then top up the carriers.

While at anchor one day a Chinook carrying a big black bowser underneath turned up at the anchorage, lowered it onto the deck and the pilot asked the Captain: "I say old man, you couldn't fill this up with AVGAS please ?" then flew off to who knows where.

The Sparks on that ship told me that they had to scratch their heads for a bit because she wasn't really rigged to fill up big black bags. Four powerful cargo pumps to 10 or 12 inch pipes at the loading/discharging manifold didn't really lend itself to that kind of transfer. Eventually the engineers rigged up a system using a compressed air barrel pump (nothing electrical is installed on the deck of a product carrier, product means it carries refined product, things like AVGAS, petrol, naphtha and so on, gas from such cargoes and electricity are not a good mix,) With a bit of fiddling they managed to fill up the bowser. The Old Man was a bit uneasy at having a big bag of AVGAS on his deck and called in on the VHF to say it was ready and could they please clear it off his deck. Back came the Chinook, hooked it up and flew off with a thank you. No more details were given.

It wasn't something a Merchant Ship like that would normally contemplate doing, but on an MOD charter in a warzone, apparently, anything went. I was on a Class III chemical tanker at the time, carrying fresh water, ships consume water a lot, they can't make enough via the evaporators to supply other ships, hence we were there to top up our sister ship which was acting as a fleet water carrier.

We didn't have to sweat about having a big bag of AVGAS flopping about on the deck I'm happy to say. :)
 
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