With The World Wide Fleet Of Aircraft Being Grounded,

and it has to be said, with a number never taking to the skies again,

 former technician for the Royal Air Force, Steve Jones took the above, a engine nacelle from a Vickers VC10 operated by the Royal Air Force and repurposed it into this,

 a camper trailer for his family in Lancashire, England, 

He spent 1,000 hours between January and mid-March of this year on the build to create a functional caravan for camping, inside there is a gas stove and a bed, while also retaining much of the original appearance, one of the engine access panels is now a door into the interior, and there is more to come, he has just taken delivery of a 747 engine intake, 

to make a totally unique hot tub!

Goodbye Old Friend,

the Australian airline Qantas has retired its last Boeing 747 jumbo jet,

in the past 38 years I have visited Thailand so many times, travelling there as many as 5 or 6 times a year, often as it happens with Qantas, over the past week, Qantas operated three “Farewell Jumbo Joy Flights” touring Sydney, Brisbane, and Canberra with passengers on board for the final time, last Wednesday the last 747 in the Qantas fleet took off with six pilots and no passengers, the flight path drew Qantas' distinctive kangaroo logo in the sky, the last flight is taking the aircraft from Sydney to Los Angeles, where it will clear customs before continuing on to its final resting place in the California desert, after making a scenic departure over Sydney and a low pass over the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) in Wollongong, which hosts a retired Qantas 747, QF7474 turned east over the Tasman Sea to draw Qantas’ iconic kangaroo, measuring 275 kilometres east-west and 250 km north-south, the kangaroo took slightly less than 90 minutes to complete. When finished, VH-OEJ climbed to cruising altitude for the last time and headed out over the Pacific Ocean towards Los Angeles. After resting at LAX for a day, the very last takeoff by a Qantas 747 will send VH-OEJ to the Mojave Air and Space Port to join its fleet mates in retirement, and I guess be stripped for parts, such fond memories of the numerous hours I have spent in what was my favorite plane, the mighty 747, RIP.

An Aircraft Is Spinning Hopelessly Out Of Control,

in a flat spin,

 a phenomenon in which the aircraft stalls and quickly loses altitude while spinning from wing to wing, once this happens, the aircraft is usually very difficult to recover, losing height at an alarming rate at 15,000 feet Captain Gary Faust decided to bail out, his team mates had been giving him help in spin recovery, but it was now getting downright dangerous to stay with the craft, this happened on February 2, 1970, when three F-106 Delta Darts took off from the Malmstrom Air Force Base (which is near Great Falls in Montana) for a routine training mission, after ejecting, the aircraft left unmanned for the trip helped by Mr. Gravity, the plane plummeted to the earth, and landed with a few scratches and no structural damage! and except for some superficial scratches on its underside, it was still flight-worthy and later put back in active service,

so how did all of this happen? from his parachute, Gary watched incredulously as the now-pilotless aircraft glided down gently and skidded to a halt on a wheat field near Big Sandy, Montana, Gary drifted into the nearby mountains, and was later rescued by local residents, as for the aircraft it is thought that the reduction in weight and change in center of gravity caused by the removal of the pilot, coupled with the blast force of his seat rocketing out of the plane pushing the nose of the aircraft down, changed the dynamics of the falling aircraft causing it to miraculously recover from the spin! what are the chances of that ever happening again?

I Guess We Have All Made At Least One,

if not two paper airplanes,

 which sort of flew, if Mr. Gravity was kind, but how to make a world beating paper aircraft? 

meet John Collins, aka The Paper Airplane Guy, is a master at shattering world records with a single sheet of paper. The aircraft designer now has collaborated with Great Big Story, and shows how he made the Susanne, the model that secured his spot in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2012,

You can find more instructional videos on Collins’s YouTube channel or in his book that comes with 16 tear-out model planes, which remembering the failures that I produced as a kid, I definitely need!

Paper Aircraft Which Look So Fantastical,

are the subject of this post,

 they are made by Zim & Zou, who also took all of the photographs, 

 if their work looks slightly familiar, we have featured their work before,

 this collection is a part of “Exodus.” 

 each body displays multiple geometric patterns created with cut and stacked paper that match the rest of the fleet,

 the Dordogne, France-based artistic duo calls this personal project “an ode to travel. Thrown in an endless movement, the aircraft colony crosses time and space toward an unknown outcome. Like birds stuck in an eternal migration, they’re pursuing their dream of an elsewhere.”

 in a statement, the pair said paper is their preferred medium because it “inspires them for its versatility, infinite range of colors and unique textures. The flat paper sheets turned into volume are giving an installation the poetry of ephemeral material.” 

 you can head to Instagram and Behance for more of Zim & Zou’s tangible pieces, 

 and check out their shop, for prints,

 if you are wanting to buy one of the pieces for your collection,

have a look and leave your details here, what fantastical aircraft they really are.

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet,

is phrase often heard,

photograph above of a F-16 by Pixabay, if you shot a bullet and then accelerated can you be shot by your own speeding bullet? in other words fly faster than a speeding bullet, catch it up and put yourself into the firing line, so if you are in an aircraft and fired your own 20 mm cannon could you shoot yourself down? the answer surprisingly is yes, as the pilot of a Dutch F-16 found out! the Netherlands’ Defense Safety Inspection Agency (Inspectie Veiligheid Defensie) is investigating an incident during a January military exercise in which a Dutch Air Force F-16 was damaged by live fire from a 20-millimeter cannon, and this is the thing, its own 20-millimeter cannon! it appears that the damaged aircraft actually caught up with the 20mm rounds it fired as it pulled out of its firing run,

 a 20mm cannon, at least one of the rounds struck the side of the F-16’s fuselage, and parts of a round were ingested by the aircraft’s engine, the rounds have a muzzle velocity of 3,450 feet per second (1050 meters per second), that is speed boosted initially by the aircraft itself, but atmospheric drag slows the shells down eventually, and if a pilot accelerates and maneuvers in the wrong way after firing the cannon, the aircraft could be unexpectedly reunited with its recently departed rounds, you can read the rest of this fascinating story over at Arstechnica, now what is the other phrase? 'shoot yourself in the foot', yes that's it!

10 Years In The Making,

this colour composite photograph,

is of two jets breaking the sound barrier photographed from a third aircraft, the image is by NASA, from the post by NASA, 

'The images feature a pair of T-38s from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, flying in formation at supersonic speeds. The T-38s are flying approximately 30 feet away from each other, with the trailing aircraft flying about 10 feet lower than the leading T-38. With exceptional clarity, the flow of the shock waves from both aircraft is seen, and for the first time, the interaction of the shocks can be seen in flight'.

“We’re looking at a supersonic flow, which is why we’re getting these shockwaves,” said Neal Smith, a research engineer with AerospaceComputing Inc. at NASA Ames’ fluid mechanics laboratory.

“What’s interesting is, if you look at the rear T-38, you see these shocks kind of interact in a curve,” he said. “This is because the trailing T-38 is flying in the wake of the leading aircraft, so the shocks are going to be shaped differently. This data is really going to help us advance our understanding of how these shocks interact.”

the data will be used to develop supersonic flight that creates no sonic boom, which has restricted such flights in US airspace, what a stunning almost impossible photograph.

If You Have A Fear Of Flying,

or are flying soon,

this is not the video for you, text taken from Amaze,

'some landing and take-off highlights in awkward wind conditions this winter. Note the frequent flexing of the planes' wings in response to the turbulence. Of the five 'missed approaches' shown, three diverted to other airports, two were 'go arounds' and landed successfully on second attempt'

truly scary indeed, but what a testament to the training and skill of the pilots to land, or make the decision that all was not well and to try again or abort.

Coal, There Is Zillions Of Tons Of It Available,

so why not use it in a coal fueled ramjet aircraft engine?

 yes you read that correctly, a coal fired plane, the Kronach Lorin coal-fueled ramjet engine, was an idea that was thought of as the Second World War was nearing it’s end, a prototype was apparently built, but the war ended before they could get it to work, the aircraft never made it past the drawing board, but testing of wind-tunnel models in the DVL high-speed wind tunnel showed that the design had extraordinary stability into the Mach 2.6 range, at the end of the war even the prototype DM-1 test glider had not been finished when it was captured by American forces, 

the Americans ordered Lippisch's team who was working on it to complete the glider, and it was then shipped to the United States where it was test-flown, according to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics the results were positive and lessons learned were incorporated into NASA's research aircraft of the 1950s and onwards, film footage exists, (but I could not find it), which shows a gliding test of a scaled-down model of the P.13a, 

you can even buy a plastic model kit of the aircraft, and a paper one, at this site there is a really impressive amount of detail about the aircraft, including the fact that after the war, Lippisch, working with American aircraft designer Convair, developed and tested the XF-92 based on his designs, leading to the eventual adoption of the F-102 Delta Dagger and its successor, the F-106 Delta Dart, there is a replica at The Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach, Virginia located in the Cottbus hangar, so back to the concept, how about someone designing a clean burn coal fired aircraft engine, to use up some of that unwanted coal?

I Know Christmas Is A Long Way Off,

but if you want the ultimate boys toy for your loved one,

this has got to be it, a Phantom McDonnell Douglas F4H-1F Phantom II Bu.145310, a pre-production variant and the 11th one produced before the plane was ultimately re-designated the F-4 in September 1962, OK it is a little dated, but what do you expect for $4 million? true this war plane isn’t fully operational, but it is pretty close to being flight ready, according to The War Zone, it just needs a little work to upgrade its engines, active its ejection seats, and tinker with its avionics, then you are ready to go, all you have to do is arm it and you have the real thing, so head on over to Platinum Fighter Sales and make your dream come true!

For Anyone Flying From Perth to London,

as from next year you will no longer have to stop on the way,

 Qantas have announced that tickets will go on sale in April of 2017 for expected flights in March of 2018, for the 8,989 mile trip, meaning you will be in the air for 17.5 hours, Boeing 787 Dreamliners will be used for the hop across the world, no price has been announced yet, 17.5 hours in the air, still I guess you could catch up with a few films or a good book or two, but at least it is a bit quicker than in the 1930s, back then in 1938 a trip from London to Brisbane, Australia (the longest on offer at the time) took 11 days and had over two dozen scheduled stops, and now we can travel the journey with none.

We Have All Heard Of Solar Powered,

bikes, boats, cars and aircraft,

but this is a first for me, a solar powered helicopter, a team of undergraduates at the University of Maryland have developed a four-rotor helicopter equipped with an array of solar panels, the craft took to the air for 9 seconds, which is pretty impressive when you think that the Wright Brothers first flight lasted just 12 seconds, the helicopter lifted more than a foot off of the ground with it's one crew member,

“This project has come a long way in the past six or seven years from human-power to solar-power,” said University of Maryland PhD candidate William Staruk, who assisted with the flight. “So we are breaking barriers of all sorts in aviation with this one airframe, and we are very proud of that work here at the University of Maryland.”

here is the video of the full flight and some preparations of this world's first manned solar helicopter flight, amazing!

Thinking As They Say,

out of the box,

is what pilots and doctors of the The Royal Flying Doctor Service have to do, the service of providing flying doctors began in May 1928 and by the late 1930's there were Sections of the RFDS operating in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Northern Territory and of course Queensland, the service is the only way to get medical attention to serious cases as the distances in the above areas are so vast, so what to do when a night landing has to be made and there are no ground landing lights? 

think out of the box, what has every home in the outback got lots of? The answer, toilet paper! Take 20 or so rolls dip them in diesel mark out the runway and light them, about 180 kilometres north of Cloncurry, north-west Queensland, on the night of July the 31st. pilot Geoff Cobden said there were no flares available to light the runway, so they turned to the next best thing, 20 toilet paper rolls soaked in fuel, "I've probably landed with toilet rolls a few times a year," he said, amazing, Mr Cobden said flying into remote spots required lateral thinking at times, "The last resort, we can land with the lights of four cars, which gives us a touchdown point and where the other end of the airstrip is, but that's an absolute last resort," he said, "Generally, if a station doesn't have flares, the toilet roll option is the next best thing to using car lights and most stations have got enough toilet rolls." the injured female station hand was picked up from an airstrip near the Burke and Wills Roadhouse and taken to the Mount Isa hospital, in case you are wondering about the size of the are that is covered, piolet Geoff Cobden is based in Mount Isa, sometimes called the "oasis of the outback", with his three-person Flying Doctors team -- a doctor, nurse and a pilot -- covering an area of some 760,000 square kilometres, or putting it another way, an area bigger than France! (640,053 sq km).

When You Build A Restaurant,

you normally have an idea of the cost,

not so if you plan your restaurant to be in a plane and have to import it into China, well the cost of the aircraft, a Boeing 737 was known, 5 million yuan, at today's rate $753,466 or £565,337,

what was not known was the cost of shipping the aircraft, businessman Li Liang acquired the aircraft from Indonesian airline Batavia Air, in May 2015, but then had to go through six months of exhausting custom procedures in order to get the aircraft into China, “Demounting, port, shipping, business license, trade declaration…all these procedures were never done by anybody before, which means I had to go through them one by one,” Li said, adding that the Boeing 737 had to be disassembled a total of eight times in its four-month journey from Indonesia to Wuhan, China, getting the plane split into parts that then had to be packed in around 70 containers and shipped multiple times, it apparently cost the businessman a further 3 million yuan ($452,164 or £339,311),

but in the end all went well for him, after finally setting up the airplane restaurant on the Optics Valley Pedestrian Street, one of the busiest shopping areas of Wuhan, Li is ready to welcome curious diners and airplane enthusiasts, the restaurant is located in the cabin area of the airplane, and the cockpit has been converted into a flying simulator where patrons will be able to experience what it’s like to fly a passenger jet, Li said that a dinner at Lilly Airways is priced between 200 to 300 yuan ($30 – $45 or £22 - £33) per person, which considering the outlay seems a good deal.

Love It Or Loath It,

flying is a part of many peoples lives,

 so I am always interested in new ideas for airline travel, like this one, Clip Air, great for multi destination travel, take a trip from London to say Bangkok and on to Perth then Sidney, people travailing say London to Bangkok in pod 1, from London to Perth Pod 2, From London to Sidney in Pod 3,

you get the idea, and as one pod is dropped a new one takes its place for the next leg of the journey, the same system can be used for cargo as well, a neat idea, I wonder if it will ever catch on?

I Had Thought,

that only, America, Russia and China,

were in the race to develop better stealth fighters,

but it appears with the successful maiden flight yesterday of it's X-2 fighter Japan has entered the arms race, made by the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) X-2 (formerly the Advanced Technology Demonstrator - Experimental [ATD-X]) 'Shinshin' (Spirit) fifth-generation fighter technology demonstrator took to the skies over  Nagoya Airport before conducting a series of flight characteristics trials, it landed at the Japan Air Self-Defense Force's (JASDF's) Gifu Air Base, some 50 km to the north,

'control of the aircraft went exactly as in our simulated training sessions', the test pilot is reported as saying, so why is Japan entering the arms race? the X-2 may have been born out of desperation, after America flatly refused to sell its most advanced stealth fighter, the F-22, to Japan, so if you can not buy one make your own!

Although Air Travel Is Considered The Safest Way To Travel,

but things can and do go wrong, 

 which got aviation engineer Vladimir Tatarenko thinking, he reasoned why not make the passenger compartment in an emergency detachable?

then in the case of an emergency,

the passenger section would detach and parachute to earth safely, it all seems like a neat idea, just a shame about the engineer, co-pilot and pilot in the nose section!

It Was A Very Merry Christmas Indeed,

for Chinese PLAAF pilots,

as they heard that on December 25th at the CAC factory in Chengdu, Sichuan, the first production J-20, "2101", was put through taxiing tests on the factory runway, this seems to signify the move away from prototype production to building fighters for actual military use, "2101" will soon have a coat of radar-absorbent material (RAM) applied over its yellow primer, "2101" is the ninth J-20 fighter built by the CAC in under five years (the first J-20 prototype flew in January 2011) the J-20 will give the PLAAF a technological advantage over every other Asian air force, while the J-20 may not be able to supercruise (fly at supersonic speeds without using fuel-thirsty afterburners) with its current Russian AL-31 turbofan engines, its high level of stealth, long range and electronic warfare capabilities will make it a very formidable foe for other fighters, the J-20 also carries a powerful active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, nose-mounted infrared search and tracking sensors, and fuselage-mounted cameras to give its pilot a VR 360 degree imaging (similar to the F-35's avionics), 

for weapons, the J-20 would have long-range missiles like the PL-12, PL-15, and PL-21, and short-ranged infrared-guided PL-8 and PL-10, networked with other platforms such as the Divine Eagle anti-stealth drone, the J-20's array of sensors will give it the ability to go toe-to-toe with other stealth fighters, it appears that future J-20's will likely have super-cruise capable Chinese WS-15 turbofan engines and improved gallium nitride AESA radars, with further out options including pilot controlled UAVs, as J-20 testing wraps up, the PLAAF will also have many other new projects to roll out, like the J-31 stealth fighter, H-20 stealth bomber, Sharp Sword stealth UAV and hypersonic weaponry, as I have mentioned before lets wish that none of all of this will ever be used in anger.

The Eighth J-20 Prototype '2017',

made its maiden flight on November 24,

the ceremony surrounding its November 24, 2015 maiden flight suggests that the J-20 project has hit a major milestone,

 the first Chinese squadron of J-20s will start flying in 2017, about six years after the J-20's first flight in January 2011, the most significant change in the new prototype is the reshaped cockpit canopy, which provides the pilot with greater visibility, the lack of other great design changes suggest that '2017' is very close to the final J-20 production configuration,

the first squadrons of LRIP J-20 stealth fighters will have less powerful engines, but their stealth, radars and avionics would still put them ahead of any non fifth generation fighter in Asia, or the world, in terms of performance the J-20s may not be as fast as the F-22 (but will be fast as the F-35), but they will still possess stealthy features, advanced radars, jammers, infrared sensors and long range missiles, providing new competition in the arms race to dominate the skies, it is not known how many J-20s will be built, but I guess a lot.

For Those That Want Something A Little Faster,

than a fold up bicycle,

 how about one of these? it is the Cobalt Co50 Valkyrie, the aircraft has a single, rear-facing, piston engine driving a three-blade carbon-fibre pusher propeller, and is claimed to be able to cover more than 1,400 nautical miles (1,600 mi/2,590 km) at 220 knots (253 mph/407 km/h) in economy mode with a pilot and one passenger, this distance decreases as the number of passengers or speed increases, but even fully-loaded and travelling at maximum speed, the aircraft is still claimed to be able to travel more than 840 km (520 mi) before refuelling,

with a canard front wing, sleek aerodynamic shape and a turbocharged 350 hp (260 kW) engine, it is produced in two formats, the CO50 is a fully-certified version capable of being flown unrestricted and with an estimated delivery time of mid-2017, whilst the Valkyrie-X is a factory-built experimental-certified aircraft with an estimated production time of 6 months from the date of order,

it has a modern dash board and features the largest, single-piece canopy in the world, the pre-orders have just been opened, and an experimental Valkyrie-X version can be had for US buyers as early as the middle of 2016 for a US$15,000 deposit now and the remainder of the $595,000 total when the craft is ready for delivery, the ultimate, fully-certified version will be available by the middle of 2017 and set you back around $699,000, before options of course, would I like one? You bet! and I have to say it, I am not on commission!