Aviation

Celebrating the Wrights, and naval aviation's 100th

By Bill McMichael on December 8, 2011 Aviation, Historical, Naval aviation centennial, Photos, Wright Brothers

East Coast aviation buffs should mark their calendars for Saturday, Dec. 17, when the 108th Celebration of Powered Flight will be held at the Wright Brothers National Monument in Kill Devil Hills, N.C. Well, it’s probably not exactly the 108th celebration … no one likely paid any attention to such things for a few decades. But this event does promise to be special. It starts at 8:30 a.m. and, weather permitting, there’ll be a military aircraft flyover at exactly 10:35 a.m. — precisely when the Orville Wright “powered” off a 60-foot monorail guide and flew the brothers’ biplane a total…

And then there are two

By Gidget Fuentes on November 28, 2011 Aviation, Naval aviation, Unmanned systems

Nearly three years ago, the Navy and defense giant Northrop Grumman Corp. unveiled the X-47B unmanned air system in Palmdale, Calif., showing off the bat-wing-like tailless and pilotless autonomous bomber that is designed to take off and land on aircraft carriers. In February, the first air vehicle made history when it completed its first real flight, a half-hour mission over the California desert. On Nov. 22, the second air vehicle, known as AV-2, took off in the hazy blue skies at nearby Edwards Air Force Base and flew up to 5,000 feet as it cut some race patterns over a…

It’s pretty, but can it go supersonic?

By Joshua Stewart on September 13, 2011 Aviation, Navy

Parked in the lobby of John Ascuaga’s Nugget hotel and casino in Reno, Nev., is a one-of -a-kind Ford Mustang. Loaded with a 624-horsepower super-charged engine, the car has a custom paint job inspired by the Blue Angels, complete with a paint job of non-production, silver-infused blue paint. The Scoop Deck has seen pictures of the car before, but checking it out in person gives the change to peer over the velvet ropes and into the interior. It’s more stately than glitzy. The dash has clean lines, soft curves and is a good exercise in subtlety. Unfortunately the lighting in…

Advice from a guy who has done it before

By Joshua Stewart on September 13, 2011 Aviation, Naval aviation, Navy, Officers

The Tailhook Reunion and Symposium hosted a winging ceremony, a first for the annual meet-up. Two Navy and two Marine Corps officers received their wings. But before things were made official for Lt. j.g. Erik Michael Sink, 1st Lt. Jeffrey C. Monroe, Lt. j.g. Gregory Brett Maters and 1st Lt. Reid Savid, retired Adm. Tim Keating, formerly CO of Northern Command and Pacific Command, gave some advice that will help out any aviator headed to their first squadron. Don’t forget about mom and dad. Learn how to be a good wingman. “The best combat leaders I know … they were…

Airplane trip

By Joshua Stewart on August 3, 2011 Aviation, Navy, spice, Video

Have you ever slowed down to really take your time and think about how how an airplane flies? Like really thought about it? Like looked through the airplane and thought about it, man? No need to spark up a pipe loaded with spice, Liz Matzelle is giving you that chance with an errie web video. In her clip she shows helicopters and planes flying at incredible speeds, but with their motions played back at a sluggish pace. She captured the footage at an extremely high number of frames-per-second but then played them back at a normal speed. The effect: extremely…

That flag

By Bill McMichael on August 2, 2011 Aviation, Foreign navies, Helicopters, Historical, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, Maritime operations, Naval aviation, Navy, Pearl Harbor, Photos, Ships, The Pacific, Training, World War II

I remember a 1990-ish visit to a Japanese submarine base and being dumbfounded to see the subs flying the rising sun flag off their stern masts. Dumbfounded, because being, ahem, of a certain age, I associated the flag — a red disc with red and white “beams” extending outward — with the aggressive World War II-era regime that launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in an effort to exercise total dominance over the Pacific. Its use was banned in 1945 following the surrender to the United States and its allies, but many Americans don’t realize that it was re-adopted…

Ike's return is on track

By Bill McMichael on July 14, 2011 Aviation, Carriers, Flight deck certification, Maintenance, Maritime operations, Navy, Photos, Safety, Shipyard, Unmanned carrier landing

The carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower is enjoying a noteworthy and productive post-availability period at sea. On July 2, Ike, operating off the Atlantic coast, was the scene of the first fully hands-free carrier landing as an F/A-18D modified to emulate the in-development X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System aircraft touched down under control of an onboard computer network linked to the plane. The aircraft was manned in case something went wrong, but the pilot kept his hands off the controls, the Navy told my colleague Joshua Stewart. See his story in the July 18 Navy Times. Four days later, the carrier…

Hornets, Vikings and carrier Yorktown (?!) in Disney movie

By Joshua Stewart on July 8, 2011 Aviation, Carriers, Movies, Naval aviation

It’s not just the littoral combat ship Independence that has a cameo in a Disney movie. All sorts of Navy hardware show up for an upcoming release. A carrier and at least a squadron’s worth of Super Hornets are featured in “Planes,” a direct-to-video movie expected in 2013. A frame-by-frame review of the trailer shows that in addition to Hornets, there’s what looks like an S-3B Viking in the background of an unidentifiable aircraft carrier (a big “10” is painted on the flight deck, but this ship is clearly is not Yorktown, which was decommissioned in 1970), and a B-2…

F-35C heads north

By Joshua Stewart on June 30, 2011 Aviation, Navy, Research, testing

The first F-35C test aircraft has left Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., for the first volley of carrier-suitability tests at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. CF-2, the second test aircraft delivered by Lockheed Martin to the Navy, arrived at Lakehurst on June 25 and was flown by test pilot Lt. Cmdr. Eric “Magic” Buus. While there, the airplane will be used for jet blast deflector tests, including deck heating, deflector panel cooling and other aspects. Shipboard testing is scheduled for 2013. But this isn’t exactly how things were planned, and this change-up, unlike others that have dogged the Joint Strike…

Ike gets back to work

By Joshua Stewart on June 29, 2011 Aviation, Carriers, Navy

The carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower is back in business. After a nine-month availability, the second-oldest Nimitz-class carrier is conducting flight ops and taking on fuel; now there are pictures to prove it. The ship, underway in the Atlantic, is completing carrier qualifications and flight deck certifications in preparation for its next deployment. Ike completed sea trials June 15, completing almost 300 INSURV tasks along the way. Here are a few pictures from this week’s activities as the carrier works toward its next deployment.

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