You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2012.
Fearless Felix Lands Record Breaking Jump! He jumped from 24 miles above the Earth’s surface reaching supersonic speads with only his body weight and and oxygen supply system! I don’t know about you but I think this is truely amazing. For one, I would never jump out of a perfectly good airplane! I think that is a waste even though somebody else would be flying the aircraft but that is beside the point. I feel that this guy has a lot of nerve and no fear! I think he has a nack for dangerous and explosively exciting stunts. Most of which I would never try. Like that picture of the group creating a massive spiral structure with over a couple hundred expert sky divers. I think that super neat but nothing I would ever do. I mean he was over twenty four miles in the air and then just jumping! I am in physics right now and I had just learned that with only the force of gravity alone and not taking in the account of the friction of the air, you accelerate and a rate of 9.81 square meters per second! That is truly incredible! I say kuddos to the this for being brave enough to do something that I know a lot of people wouldn’t do but to at least show what we as humans are actually capable of accomplishing. Thanks man, from all of us! I mean there are so many things that could have gone wrong, but they didn’t which is wonderful, don’t get me wrong! Though I think it was a highly dangerous feat to complete. He could have not have been able to pull his shoot out and fallen to his death he could have blacked out from the pressure and lost his breath, etc. I just think that this guy is really cool because he performed this amazing feat!
Take yours seats? This has a whole new meaning! An update on American Airline’s seat failure. An employee working for American Airlines had said that the spilled soda was gunking up the tracks on the floor that the rows of seats lock into, therefore the seats were coming loose. I agree with the reporter that that employee should really find a new job because there is no possible way that cola is reason why rows upon rows of seats are coming out. American Airlines has had a few 747s on the ground for the past month. Over a thousand flights have been cancelled and over 50,thousand have been delayed in the past month. The pilots, mechanics, and customers are all furious with American Airlines. The pilots have recently gone on strike. If I was a pilot flying for American Airlines, I would probably be looking for a better job since it doesn’t seem like this issue is going to end anytime soon. This is only an issue with rows of seats coming loose though. I mean that only takes an engineer and time to get the fleet in and get all the seats swapped out to newer technology in seats so they will actually stay in place. As a pilot to be, I am not proud to hear this. I am starting to lean more toward flying corporate aircraft than going commercial and working with a company like American Airlines. I really do not want to be working for a company that can not keep up with their maintenance. I want to work with a company that puts the safety of it’s pilots and passengers first and foremost before anything else! Again, this is only about seats though and media probably is making this a bigger deal than it really is but safety is first in everybody’s mind.
Okay, so … there have been a lot of people telling me I should be joining the military. I thought about the USAF ( United States Air Force). I think it would be pretty cool to have that kind of experience under my belt. Also, to have that respect and love for your country while people actually look up to you for the commitment you are making. Plus, employers like to see that on a resume since you took the time to do your duty and pull through a very difficult program and come out strong says a lot about a guy and his character. Though, I do have a guaranteed $15,000 a year at the University of Dubuque and practically a guaranteed job straight out of college probably working corporate airlines. I think I would be a little bit happier if I stuck with just going to the University of Dubuque and then heading straight into a career right after college and begin my life. I would like to have that military experience under my belt though, that is my problem. I want both things. I want to be close to home, have a well paying career, have a lot experience flying jets, be a good team leader, have a strong work ethic, have that respect from everybody because I worked hard to get to where I want to be, and also, a full ride to college. I do not want to end up like my mother and have to worry everyday because money is tight. That’s not the life I want to live. I want to be comfortable, but who doesn’t right? I had asked around to my family and friends. Most everybody I talked to said that with my brain and work ethic already I should just go to college and then start my career. My father on the other hand, since he was in the Army and now retired into the reserves, he said he would be proud of me if I chose to go into the USAF. Decisions decisions right?
Not too long ago the Feds found Loose Seats on American Airline Plane. They found that in row 12, there were a few loose seats and that passengers should not ride in those seats until maintenance has taken place. A question that quickly popped into my head was, “How old is this plane?” I mean, most airlines try to keep their aircraft, not necessarily up to date, but at least up to snuff on maintenance to ensure maximum safety for it’s passengers. If I was flying with American Airlines, I would not exactly feel safe if I knew that there were seats comeing out and not being secured down safely. I am sure the American Airliners have lost a little business from this news but I’m sure it hasn’t dropped much due to the fact that people still choose to fly. That is sort of from the economic stand point. Something else that occurred to me was, “Who is the safety advisor for the American Airlines?” I know for sure the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) has a strong foot in all the safety regulations with any aircraft or airliner but who is the advisor for that fleet of aircraft? Do they have a say in the safety regulations too? Should airlines start checking off longer lists of things to check on the plane before each flight now? Were the maintenance people not properly trained? Did the engineer design a poor design of seats? Did the mechanic apply the safener (bolts) down too loose or too tight? There are so many questions to this topic it is absolutely astounding! Would you still fly with American Airlines or even fly at all? Or would you fly with a different company? As a pilot, this has not changed my views one bit. I am still going to fly and probably just take more precautions before I takeoff next time!
The Twin Otter! This aircraft is a plane that is often flown internationally. I can fly is most weather conditions and is capable to land on almost any surface. I was recently having a nice pilot to pilot chat over email with m step mother’s new husband and he was telling me that he been a pilot of the Havilland fleet Twin Otter and getting paid very nicely! The first few things he was telling me is that experience is the key to becoming a pilot! He said to me that you need to do what you can to not just get caught up with all the simulator junk and keep up with the experience of mastering the aircraft of your choice. To poke around and fly a bunch of different aircraft and see which one you love to fly the best and then stick with it, master it, then find a job that will take your hard earned experience to put it to the test as a career and succeed! He had done this with the Twin Otter and is now happily doing what he loves flying around the world, seeing new sights ever day, while flying the plane of his choice. Now that is definitely the way to go! Therefore, I plan to take his advice by doing what I can to get through college at the University of Dubuque where I was recently accepted and given a large scholarship of $40,000 and continue to gain experience with the smaller aircraft, obtain my licenses and possibly go corporate and start getting a lot of experience early on in my career choice of becoming a professional pilot! This is something that I great enjoy and appreciate and I would love to make the most out of it by doing what I can while I can. Thanks again for the advice from all the pilots I’ve talked to!
Runways, The Most Dangerous Part of Flying?
This video talks mostly about the happenings going on over in O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois. “What is that most dangerous part of flying?” people ask. Well, with what everybody has heard already that, driving a car is even more dangerous than flying a plane! You are on the ground and have so many more reasons for failure to control the machine or to collide with another object, moving or at a stand-still. Therefore, they say now that runways are the most dangerous part of flying! Why runways? Well, because for one you aren’t off the ground yet, just like with vehicles. Like this video stated, there were a few incidents where a couple aircraft were taxiing and were within a few hundred feet of colliding into one another. They had to do emergency maneuvers in order to move around safely. There are so many more, oh I don’t really want to call them “options” but more like ways of having trouble or tragedy when you are on the ground. Once you are in the air the possibilities of failure of flight now only pertain to your aircraft or other pilots in the air. This is easily avoided due to clear communication among the other pilots in the surrounding area. With constant communication, nobody should or ever really has collided with another plane unless intending to. That only leaves mechanical errors at hand. Once in the air now, the only real problem that may occur happens to be because of failure in the aircraft. Some slight miscalculation during the pre-flight may have occurred or the mechanics didn’t do a well enough job while they were repairing a part. Whatever it is, there is less of an opportunity of failure when you are flying a plane than while driving down your neighborhood around your house is all I’m saying.
Pilot does ‘perfect’ job at JFK after nose-gear failure has passengers brace for crash landing. A pilot, and his crew, were flying a passenger plane from Rio de Janeiro to New York. When they were putting out their landing gear they realized the nose gear was turned ninty degrees. The crew and its passengers prepared for crash landing. A passenger said, “The captain kept saying,’Be calm, keep calm. We know what we’re doing.'” Though, once they reached fifty feet above the runway, the nose wheel miraculously turned and they landed safe as they would have before. Some are calling it a freak accident others are making it out as if the hand of God turned the wheel. In my opinion, I honestly believe that somebody on the plane was praying really hard and God answered their prayer to save everybody on that plane. It wasn’t their time in God’s plan. I would have been extremely nervous though. I mean that is a very large aircraft and if I thought it wasn’t going to make it to the runway I would have been really nervous. I would have done my best to be calm enough to keep the others calm but I definitely would have been really nervous! This sort of reminds me of that old guy that put the plane in the Hudson river a few years ago. Like he just had the idea pop into his head to land the plane in the river.
Aviation 