willedoo

Copied and pasted from the off topic site: Our local air museum, the Queensland Air Museum has been trying to obtain one of the classic Hornets, so on behalf of the museum, I'm begging for e-petition signatures. Hopefully the link might spread around as every signature counts. The museum has plenty of people on it's side in local, state and federal areas, but the federal government is flatly refusing requests and will scrap the remaining Hornets rather than allocate any more to museums. The problem is, there's only one chance at obtaining a Hornet and that's before they're scrapped; once they're gone, they're gone forever. None have been allocated to any Queensland museums and QAM, Australia's largest air museum, has unfortunately missed out. A Hornet would be a great addition to the museum. The RAAF fast jet line up at the museum includes an F8 Meteor, CAC Sabre, Mirage 111, a Macchi trainer and an F-111. All ex RAAF except the Meteor. It's ex UK, ex Singapore and detailed to represent the RAAF Meteor flown in Korea by WO Ron Guthrie who was the first person in the world to perform a combat ejection. Link to the e-petition: https://www.qldair.museum/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR3CrEK4TkeMUjOmTOS0dBuJB8fxe1M9G5yLK4ETuEMlGj3E1c7o24zCaLo_aem_AYVOprRVBzVWx6krUcwDtETL0q5yykUxQlrLrEpasihq_BUhBYL3Uaqq9Pz0NzgYqnQhLEsrJVG9hTlaD7vS9UEn

Looks like one of AirMed's Chieftians.

A Greek F-4 Phantom has crashed in the sea on a training mission. One crew member found dead and the other missing. https://greekcitytimes.com/2023/01/30/phantom-f-4-crashed-andravida/?fbclid=IwAR10bbFoXgal6wkfY5g8s4oT7dbrvZx_O87nS78jHqy2P0f6F62Ff7CC5jg.

Bruce, as an edit, even though all the timeline and video evidence of the battle that I've seen points to Ukrainian artillery causing the An-225 fire, I blame Russia 100% for it's demise. If they'd stayed home, the 225 would be still flying. It would be good to see the second partial 225 fly one day, if it ever happens.

Unfortunately the An-225 was collateral damage. If the Ukrainian artillery hadn't blasted the Russians out of the airport, the Russians would have held it and flown in troops and heavy equipment, giving them a good chance at their goal of taking Kiev. The battle for Hostomel airport might well have determined the entire outcome of the war. The Ukrainian artillery most likely destroyed it, going by the timelines of the battle and all the video evidence; the 225 was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It looks like the passenger wouldn't have had time to do much else. He notices the other chopper and is pointing to it, probably to another passenger. The pilot has a headset on, so wouldn't have heard him. Then the passenger taps him on the right shoulder which diverts the pilots vision in the opposite direction of the approaching second helicopter. It would have happened quickly. Unfortunately, passengers can sometimes be hesitant to point out a potential problem or question a pilot. I know of one charter flight accident where the pilot forgot to put the gear down. A couple of the blokes in the back noticed the landing gear lights weren't right and were indecisive about telling the pilot. They assumed it was a minor fault with the lights that the pilot knew about. The end result, the pilot died and the front seat passenger was severely injured and brain damaged for life. If the passengers had alerted the pilot, it would have been avoidable. That particular incident was a company charter where there was a pre existing level of familiarity between passengers and pilot. For passengers on a flight with a totally unknown pilot, it could be even a bit more intimidating to speak up. By intimidating, I mean the old layman/professional thing, where the passengers don't feel it's their place to speak up.

The site is working again, thanks Ian.

There might be a difference there with versions. I've got Firefox 100.0.1 and haven't had a problem with it timing out. It's easy enough for me as I have an add on Javascript switcher on the toolbar, so I can click a widget instead of going into settings to disable Javacript. It's handy for accessing some paywalled sites.

If you need to post in Social Australia, you can do so if you disable Javascript in your browser. That allows the posting text box to appear to post text only. Posting photos and quotes doesn't work.

Soviets did the same thing during their Afghan war. The Il-76's would do a steep approach and bank 45+ degrees.

Deleting an accidental double post.

I'd like to be able to add something positive to the debate, but where do you start; there's so many variables. Some points for starters: 1. Who do we identify as threats or potential enemies? 2. What type of threat would we encounter - a traditional attempted invasion or a more modern form of hybrid warfare? Or more likely, a combination of both. Hybrid examples could be blockading sea lanes to starve us of supplies and fuel. Cyber warfare to immobilize our electricity grid and defences, or even knocking out our satellites. If we figured out the above and focused on one thing, ie: defending the country, then we would have a chance of doing something right and building a decent defence system. Or do we stick with the theory that we can never unilaterally defend ourselves. That would mean sticking with the status quo of the U.S. alliance and designing our military to follow a coalition around the world on never ending adventures. The point is, are we militarily and economically too weak to adopt an isolationist stance. I'd say we are and have long ago boxed ourselves into the U.S. corner with no practical way to break out. That means buying more useless equipment and tagging along on their adventures, with the carrot on the stick being that they will hopefully help defend us if necessary. It has a big bearing on the type of military equipment we acquire.

Right up into the jet age the accident rates were confronting on some aircraft types. The USAF lost 889 F-100 Super Sabres to accidents, killing 324 pilots.

Did you know that a major feature of the much hyped U.S. Combat Edge System introduced in 1996 was developed by the Soviets and has been in use with Russian fighter jets since 1956. It took the Americans 40 years to copy the Russian occipital bladder helmet/mask tensioning system. Better late than never. 😮