The lost aviator

The next time you tell yourself that you'll sleep when you're dead, realize that you're making a decision that can make that day come much sooner. Pushing late into the night is a health and productivity killer. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141201150910-50578967-skipping-sleep-is-career-suicide

FlightLapse #01 - MilkyWay from SkyProduction on Vimeo . Flying through the night, while the world beneath us is at sleep, is a pretty common thing as a longhaul pilot. Late evening departures lead to far distant destinations like Singapore, Hong Kong, Sao Paolo or J’burg. Depending on the direction of the flight the crew and the passengers either have a short night up ahead if flying eastbound or almost eternal darkness if headed westwards. The latter is the case for my todays flight across the Atlantic Ocean to South America. Our flight is packed and some 340 passengers are settling in for a long night flight. Its my turn to be at the flightdeck for the first part of the journey, as my other co-pilot gets the chance to rest in the crew bunk above the passenger cabin. We are heading our westbound, along the clearly visible Alps to our left. Just before reaching Geneva and the western tip of Switzerland we are making a shallow left turn to join the Rhone valley leading us to...

"We all have standards. From whether you never leave the house without a tie to cleaning your children’s faces before they go to school, we all have a level that we refuse to allow ourselves to fall below. I’m sure you can see people’s standards being eroded in your workplace, just look around you. The girl who is having a muffin and coke for lunch, the boss who has started to come into meetings late or the guy who is skipping the gym and putting on weight. When you allow your standards to slip you are effectively allowing yourself to be ‘less awesome’. You are approving of your own poor behaviour and saying, ‘I’m going to let myself down today.’ ‘Airmanship covers a broad range of desirable behaviours and abilities in an aviator. It is not simply a measure of skill or technique, but also a measure of a pilot’s awareness of the aircraft, the environment in which it operates, and of his own capabilities.’ ‘Truly superior pilots are those who use their superior judgment to avoid ...

https://youtu.be/AsO8GTXgGAI Take a flight in a World War II B-17G bomber. Interesting to see the detail of engine start, taxi, take off, cruise and landing all from cockpit.  You can take a flight in this B-17 as well, book via the link below http://www.yankeeairmuseum.org

https://youtu.be/f7tg94QflBY Avoiding Dangerous Divergent Aerodynamic Flutter. One of the most dangerous events that can occur in flight is a phenomena called "flutter". Flutter is an aerodynamically induced vibration of a wing, tail, or control surface that can result in total structural failure in a matter of seconds. The prediction of flutter is not a precise science and requires flight verification that flutter will not occur within the normal flight envelope. The aerodynamic surfaces of an airplane are constructed so that they can carry the loads that are produced in flight. For example the wing must be capable of supporting the weight of the airplane as well as the additional lift produced during turning flight. The resulting wing structure can be viewed as a blade or spring extending from the fuselage. If we "tap" the spring with a hammer, it will vibrate at a frequency which relates to the stiffness of the spring. A stiff spring will vibrate at a higher ...

https://youtu.be/Zw0pHT47AAU https://youtu.be/o3lm29C63Ec https://youtu.be/qyWntl87HoQ https://youtu.be/UHYbnv6O1Go https://youtu.be/zI2vRwFKnHQ

Captain Robert N. Buck retired from TWA after having flown well over two thousand Atlantic crossings and thirty-seven years of service as chief pilot and director of thunderstorm research. During World War II he was engaged in weather research for the U.S. Air Corps, for which he was awarded, as a civilian, the Air Medal by President Harry Truman. More recently, Buck has worked with the International Civil Aviation Organization -- the UN's body for aviation -- to develop a new plan of world airspace.  In  North Star over My Shoulder,  Bob Buck tells of a life spent up and over the clouds, and of the wonderful places and marvelous people who have been a part of that life. He captures the feel, taste, and smell of flying's great early era -- how the people lived, what they did and felt, and what it was really like to be a part of the world as it grew smaller and smaller. A terrific storyteller and a fascinating man, Bob Buck has turned his well-lived life into a delight...