Originally posted by Lilith
There is actually a bit of work like that in Australia, guy I know from when I got my licence works for one of the small airlines up in Nth Qld doing it. Though in my opinion flying over that much water all the time can be a bit nerve racking if you ever had to ditch it and tropical weather can be 'exciting' up there!
Not to mention the locals...
gehzumteufel
This is one of my favourite aircraft. Absolutely beautiful.
Omega_Blue
quote:
Originally posted by gehzumteufel
This is one of my favourite aircraft. Absolutely beautiful.
not a fan of those winglets personally.
i still love the a-10. liked it ever since i was a kid. i dunno. love the rear engine design i guess.
Lilith
quote:
Originally posted by Sushipunk
Not to mention the locals...
I did charity care flights in east Africa, in North Queensland you just have to add a bit more fuel to account for the locals sniffing the av-gas and don't shoot at you 'just to see if they can hit it'
Sushipunk
quote:
Originally posted by Lilith
I did charity care flights in east Africa, in North Queensland you just have to add a bit more fuel to account for the locals sniffing the av-gas and don't shoot at you 'just to see if they can hit it'
:haha:
Acton
Here are a few of my favourites.
Mig 29.
Here's a video that I witnessed a few years ago.
GR-7
Eurofighter Typhoon.
Last but certainly not least, the TSR-2
That'll do for now anyway :)
djkopernikus
quote:
Originally posted by djkopernikus
Couldn't find this kind of thread, there was only "plane crash" related:D So, here we can babble bobble about everything about flying and etc..
Do you like flying, airports or do you have fear of flying?
Here is some video material from my trip to Ukraine, and it's of course: aviation related.
Originally posted by Acton
Last but certainly not least, the TSR-2
Ah yea... I love old Cold War era fighters/attack jets.
The century series of US planes were awesome.
F-100 Super Sabre
F-101 Voodoo
F-102 (FAP FAP FAP) Delta Dagger
F-104 Starfighter
F-105 Thunderchief
F-106 Delta Dart (FAP FAP FAP)
(enjoy your AIR-2 Genie Nuclear Air to Air Rocket beyotch!)
The 103, and 107-109 were all experimentals.
djkopernikus
Guide to viewing aerial phenomena
UFO/Aircraft spotting tips and tricks.
So many photos, so many videos...how do you sort out the wheat from the chaff? How do you know if what you are looking at really is the mothership, or something more explainable?
Lets take a look and see what we can come up with, and start with stuff we know about.
Airplanes
The sky is full of them - literally. They come in all shapes and sizes. I realise that sounds obvious at first, but there are some things up there that just look plane (excuse the pun) weird. Depending on the angle of viewing and viewing conditions even the most innocuous of craft can appear to be unusual. Heres some examples from google image - I've linked to pages of images rather than single ones to give a wider view of angles.
Predator Predator
Global Hawk Global Hawk
Various other UAV's
In some pictures, the craft above look like ordinary identifiable planes, but in others, particulary where they are partially observed, or at an angle, its very easy to mistake the shape as something unusual. Military planes such as the Typhoon, Vulcan and B2 coming towards a viewer have very unusual viewing aspects, and can appear to be very slim. when seen from the front or side, and diamond shaped during a banked turn.
Daytime Observation
If you are looking into the sky, you need to be familiar with Contrast because if you aren't, then your eyes are literally going to be playing tricks on you. Most military aircraft are painted in order to minimise viewing from the ground, using low visibility camouflage that is grey in colour. Many civilian airliners have white painted or bare metal fuselages, which again makes certain aspects of them hard to spot from a distance. When viewing civil airliners flying at 30,000ft (5 and a half miles up) the main body of the plane will be in sunlight but the underside of the wings will be in shadow, and as the wings are slender in aspect the shadow is sometimes enough to make them lost against the background - they literally blend in. This gives the impression of a missile or tube/cigar shape, when actually what you are seeing is a normal plane. This is a common cause of people believing they have seen a UFO. The same can be said for helicopters, particularly teardrop shaped ones such as the Gazelle above, where the rotors can be very hard to see.
Height and visual referencing is another gauging factor in aircraft observation. Simply put looking at an aircraft unaided in a clear sky it is not possible to gauge the height of any object accurately above approximately 500ft, as your visual cortex has nothing to gauge the distance off. If you knew what plane you were looking at, what the wingspan was, what the apparent wingspan is and your approximate angle of viewing, and had a decent scientific calculator and the knowledge of trigonometry to calculate it, you might be able to hazard a decent guess, but thats all you could manage. Likewise, if what you saw was passing through visible cloud, and you could get a meteorological reading of what level the cloudbase was at, you'd have an idea, but it sill would not be precise.
Viewing angle is another factor. Its is not possible to judge height from a ground based object unless what you are looking at is literally next to it. You need to understand Perspective and Aerial Perspective to grasp this concept properly, and combine it with distance and Angle of View You may see something that appears to be literally just skimming the top of a building, but could be 10 miles further behind it and much higher.
Speed must also be taken into account. If you can time movement accurately against two well known landmarks, then speed=distance/time. Problems occur however when the thing you are viewing is heading straight towards or straight away from you, as it will appear to hover in one spot.
Sound is another factor. Firstly, theres the Doppler Effect, which means that as an object approaches you it compresses the sound infront of it, appearing quieter than it actually is until it passes your point of reference. This can lead to objects coming head on appearing to be silent, or objects passing in the distance being muffled by local ambient sounds and wind noise. After doppler, you need to take into account the engines being used and the type of aircraft.
The Gazelle helicopter mentioned above has a special type of tail rotor called a fenstral. This minimises noise and aids aerodynamics. Most modern military helicopters use turbine engines which produce a whistle or whine, and this can often get lost in background noise. Modern helicopters have noise reducing rotors that do not produce the traditional "slap" noise traditionally associated with helicopters.
Civilian airliners also have much quieter engines these days due to noise emission constraints.
Night-time
Night is particularly frustrating, because you have all of the considerations of the above, and then some, because you can't actually see the outline shape of an aircraft. ALL aircraft flying civilian or military are required to display navigation lights Aircraft Lights and Beacons UNLESS they are in active combat in which case they may get exemption, or are deep "black" projects (The F-117 and B2 were tested overland without running lights, for obvious "stealth" purposes (that does not prevent deep black projects from being seen by such things as engine exhaust port glow).
Other things are more prevalent at night. You will see stars, and satellites overhead reflecting natural sunlight are much more prominent (just because its dark on the ground, when our particular side of the planet is in shadow, it does not mean its dark at satellites orbital points, they are above the curvature of the earth. There are many satellite trackers out there on the internet Real time satellite tracking is one such example.
Stars and planets twinkle . That can give an appearance of colour change. They also move across the sky relative to the earths rotation
ANY time
Optical Illusions need to be taken into consideration. Your eyes CAN AND DO play tricks on you. Clouds moving across the sky can make a static object such as a star, or even the moon, appear to be moving. Combine that with twinking, and the effects mention above to do with perspective and suddenly what may appear to be sensational is actually quite explainable.
Recording
So, you've seen something unusual, and you want to record it. Heres a few things to note.
Write down the date, time and location of the observation as soon as possible. Its easy to get muddled up after the fact.
Note down the weather Atmospheric Phenomenon can play a BIG part in UFO sightings.
KEEP THE CAMERA AS STILL AS POSSIBLE A moving camera is no good to anyone, as it distorts any movement - or lack of movement - of the object.
Try and get a visual reference point in shot - This can be hard to do, but is worth the effort as it puts your sighting into context with a known point. Getting two known points is even better, and may aide in actually placing your sighting in a particular point of the sky
DO NOT ZOOM IN AND OUT Zooming distorts the image. Digital cameras are susceptible to blurs, colour distortions and pixellation when zooming in and out. If you must zoom onto an object, do it slowly, and keep the zoomed object in few for a good few seconds before you zoom back out.
Try and get other witnesses who will corroborate the sighting - Goes without saying - multiple witnesses to an event give it much more strength. Even better if the object is viewed from two different locations. Most people these days have cell phones - use them!
DO not film from behind glass - Glass distorts, and reflects internal and some external light sources. Hoaxers love glass for that very reason.
Use the most expensive camera you can find - Quality of image comes with expense. Sad, but true.
I'm sure I've missed a few things here, but I hope I've covered a lot of major bases. Please feel free to add/comment. I hope this post is useful
FuzzQi
*puts on tinfoil hat*
Gonna go get me some UFO shotz lol
But seriously I found that post kind of interesting
Also this thread has seriously got me thinking about applying for a job with an airline.
