by captjeff | Apr 27, 2020 | Plane Tales
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Fifty three years ago a man fell to earth. He came from space having survived the appallingly hostile conditions that exist there. Apart from the hard vacuum, the electromagnetic radiation, the intense cold, the cosmic rays and other damaging particles that exist there. Despite overcoming numerous failures on his Soyuz-1 spacecraft he had achieved the near impossible and piloted a manual reentry… all he had to do now was to wait for the life saving parachutes to deploy.
Colonel Vladimir Komarov
The Soyuz 1 capsule.
The aftermath of the Soyuz 1 crash.
The commemorative plaque and the Fallen Astronaut sculpture left on the Moon by the crew of Apollo 15.
Vladimir Komarov with his wife Valentina Yakovlevna and daughter Irina.
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to NFCC, Smithsonian Institute, NASA and the US Gov.
by captjeff | Apr 18, 2020 | Plane Tales
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The German name for the Shrike songbird is Würger, which also means Strangler and by coincidence, was also the name given to the Focke-Wulf 190, a World War II fighter which quickly became one of the most feared Axis fighters of the 2nd World War. Various dubious plans were made to get hold of one to reveal its secrets but then along came Oberleutnant Armin Faber.
Armin Faber’s gift in RAF markings.
The Shoreham Aircraft Museum.
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Imperial War Museum, FO Watkins and the Shoreham Aircraft Museum.
by captjeff | Apr 13, 2020 | Plane Tales
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Dick Andrews was flying over the battle of A Sầu in Vietnam and feeling deja view as he saw what was going on beneath him. It took his mind back to the day in WWII when he landed his P38 Lightning in a field to rescue his leader who had crash landed there. Now he was watching the same thing happening below except a Skyraider was landing amongst enemy Viet Cong and not German troops. A remarkable coincidence and a remarkable pair of stories.
Bernie Fisher wearing his Medal of Honour in 2008.
Fisher and Myers after the rescue.
Fisher’s damaged A-1E.
Dick Andrews and Dick Willsie squeezed into the same P38 cockpit.
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF and March Field Air Museum.
by captjeff | Apr 5, 2020 | Plane Tales
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I was about to enter the Devil’s Triangle, the Limbo of the Lost, the Twilight Zone or the Hoodoo Sea… more commonly referred to as the Bermuda Triangle. What dangers awaited, would I disappear like the famous loss of the 5 Avengers of Flight 19! Listen to this terrifying story of myth and mystery!
A fine example of a Pseudoscience.
The Bermuda Triangle.
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Lt Cdr Horace Bristol, US Navy, Alphaios and People’s Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge (1883)
by captjeff | Mar 26, 2020 | Plane Tales
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Boeing was the most successful aircraft manufacturing company on the planet but a European consortium thought they could take on the world’s best selling airliner, the B737, with a design of their own. So was borne the A320 family of airliners with the most daring and radical of technological advances that the airline industry had seen since the advent of the jet engine. But the birth of the A320 was marred by a controversial crash that might sink the project before it had got going!
A tale produced to celebrate the A320 Podcast’s 100th show.
The larger A321…
… and very much smaller A318.
Appendix 3 of the BEA final report into the crash of Air France flight 296.
The A320 and B737 in competition.
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Ken Fielding, Bill Larkins, Austrian Airlines, Aero Icarus and the BEA.
by captjeff | Mar 21, 2020 | Plane Tales
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What better day to celebrate the aviators of Ireland than on St Patrick’s Day. From the crash of Alcock and Brown to a tractor maker and a flying olympic competitor, the Emerald Isles have a fascinating aviation history.
Henry Ferguson, perhaps better known as an agricultural machinery maker than a pilot.
Lilian Bland piloting her Mayfly.
Lady Heath featured top centre amongst the best known aviators of the ’30s.
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Joseph D. Eddy and The Queenslander.
