Free Republic

Happy Anniversary: 100 Years of Marine Corps Aviation…

An inbound airplane’s windshield was hit with a laser beam fired from east of the runway at Myrtle Beach International Airport about 10 p.m. Sunday, but no landing problems were reported. Myrtle Beach Police Lt. Doug Furlong said the laser strike was reported, but investigations found nothing to follow up on. “I’m sure it did happen, though,” he said.

The underwear bomb that surfaced in Yemen this month has reignited concern that al-Qaeda's bomb-makers are finding innovative ways to hide explosive devices - even placing them within the body. How worried should we be? A body cavity device would be just the latest chapter in the deadly cat and mouse game played between al-Qaeda and Western security officials when it comes to aviation. The terror group has consistently sought out new means of evading airport security regimes.

A blue ribbon panel of experts reviewing the deadly crash at last year's National Championship Air Races in Reno is making a number of recommendations to make the event safer but none would prevent the competition from continuing as scheduled in September, officials told The Associated Press.

Aviation authorities are scratching their heads over a mysterious flying object in the skies above Colorado that almost caused a mid-air crash. The object was sighted by a commercial jet pilot, who claimed to air traffic controllers that some kind of flying craft got too close for comfort on Monday. In a transmission that appeared on LiveATC.net, the operator of the Cessna Citation 525 CJ1 says: 'A remote controlled aircraft, or what? ... 9News reported the Citation was about 8,000 feet above sea level, or about 2,800 feet above the ground, at the time the pilot reported the seeing the...

Johnson, known as "Mama Bird," was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio in 2007. She is said to have logged more flight hours, trained more pilots and given more Federal Aviation Administration exams than any other pilot on the planet. When inducted into the Hall of Fame, Johnson had been flying for 55 years and had spent the equivalent of seven years in flight.

The roar of the propellers cutting the air is what sparks memories for WWII veteran Howard Mann. "The sound is the same," he said. "The sound brings it all back." Mann, 92, was a passenger in the B-24 Liberator "Witchcraft" that took flight from Long Beach to John Wayne Airport on Friday as part of the Wings of Freedom exhibition at the Lyon Air Museum... The last time Mann was in a B-24 was Jan. 3, 1945, flying over the Pacific...

WWII fighter plane hailed the 'aviation equivalent of Tutankhamun's Tomb' found preserved in the Sahara The Kittyhawk P-40 has remained unseen and untouched since it came down on the sand in June 1942 and has been hailed the "aviation equivalent of Tutankhamun's Tomb". It is thought the pilot survived the crash and initially used his parachute for shelter before making a desperate and futile attempt to reach civilisation by walking out of the desert. The RAF airman, believed to have been Flight Sergeant Dennis Copping, 24, was never seen again. The single-seater fighter plane was discovered by chance by Polish...

WWII fighter plane hailed the 'aviation equivalent of Tutankhamun's Tomb' found preserved in the Sahara A Second World War aeroplane that crash landed in the Sahara Desert before the British pilot walked to his death has been found almost perfectly preserved 70 years later. Most of its cockpit instruments are intact and it still had it guns and ammunition before they were seized by the Egyptian military. There are also signs of the makeshift camp the pilot made alongside the fuselage. No human remains have been found but it is thought the pilot may lie within a 20 mile radius...

He is best known for his critical actions as an off-duty DC-10 training captain who helped captain Al Haynes minimize loss of life on United Airlines Flight 232 when all flight controls were lost, on July 19, 1989.

DEVELOPING: A plane reportedly is being quarantined after landing in Chicago, and the investigation is said to involve the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Aviation officials in Chicago say the city's health department and fire department have responded to a flight that landed at Midway International Airport, but local police and fire officials told Fox News the CDC is handling it.

How Lockheed’s Skunk Works Got into the Stealth Fighter Business How Lockheed’s Skunk Works Got into the Stealth Fighter Business How do you hide an airplane behind a bird? Very skillfully. Lt. Col. William B. O'Connor (ret.) flew the F-117 Nighthawk during the Bosnia Conflict, and in Stealth Fighter, he explains the history, operation, and soul America's most advanced stealth jet. While the United States had never embraced a defensive mindset and had only fielded one strategic SAM system to that point, the Nike-Hercules dating from the 1950s, and one real medium-range tactical system, the HAWK (homing all the way...

A kit-built, high-performance light plane crashed Monday in central Oregon, killing two men, the Deschutes County sheriff's office said. [snip] The victims were identified as Harry Mortimer League, 68, of Chicago and Patrick Franzen, 52, of Bend. Their bodies were recovered and their relatives have been notified, Davis said. The plane was described as a single-engine Lancair IV-Propjet. The cause of the crash was under investigation. [snip to end]

A twin-engine aircraft crashed into the Gulf of Mexico after the pilot was unresponsive for nearly three hours as radar tracked the plane flying aimlessly in loops. The FAA lost radio contact with the Cessna 421 before 9 a.m. ET. It was circling at approximately 28,000 feet. Fully loaded, the plane was carrying about 3.5 hours worth of fuel. Only the pilot was thought to be on board. The plane took off from Slidell, La., and was en route to Sarasota, Fla., according to a flight plan. Somewhere between the two points, it began flying in circles. Officials at NORAD...

The Prime Minister secured a historic deal that will see the fighter aircraft dug up and shipped back to the UK almost 67 years after they were hidden more than 40-feet below ground amid fears of a Japanese occupation. The gesture came as Mr Cameron became the first Western leader to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese democracy campaigner held under house arrest for 22 years by the military regime, and invited her to visit London in her first trip abroad for 24 years. He called on Europe to suspend its ban on trade with Burma now that it...

EXTRAORDINARY plans to raise a lost ''squadron'' of Spitfires that have lain buried in Burma since the end of World War II were revealed at the weekend as David Cameron, Britain's Prime Minister, visited Rangoon. A Lincolnshire farmer who devoted 15 years of his life to finding the planes has spoken about his quest to recover them and get them airborne. David Cundall, 62, has spent £130,000 ($200,000) of his money, visited Burma 12 times, persuaded its secretive regime to trust him, and all the time sought testimony from a dwindling band of Far East veterans in order to locate...

Historic planes buried in Second World War are to be shipped back to Britain after their mystery locations were discovered War leaders did not want them to fall into foreign hands when they demobilised in 1945 Hidden in crates at a depth of 4ft to 6ft the RAF then forgot where they were Twenty brand-new RAF Spitfires could soon reach for the sky following a deal reached with Burma yesterday. Experts believe they have discovered the locations of around 20 of the Second World War fighters buried at airfields around the country. David Cameron has secured an agreement that they...

(CNN) -- A Navy jet crashed Friday into some apartments near Virginia Beach, Virginia, sending flames and thick black smoke into the air, a military spokesman and a witness said. Two apartment buildings were on fire, CNN affiliate WTKR reporting, citing witnesses. The jet was from Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The crew of the two-seater F/A-18 safely ejected, but their condition wasn't known, a Navy spokesman said. The plane is from a training squadron, the Navy said. George Pilkington, an eye witness to the crash, said he was the plane flying low,...

Samuel L. Jackson was nowhere to be found when an Australian pilot found himself with "Snakes on a Plane" Tuesday. Air Frontier pilot Braden Blennerhassett was just 20 minutes into a flight from Darwin to the remote Northern Territory community of Peppimenarti to drop off cargo when a snake suddenly appeared in the cockpit. "Look, you're not going to believe this," he told air traffic controllers, "I've got snakes on a plane." Blennerhassett was forced to make an emergency landing after the unusual mayday call. "Sure enough, out of the corner of my eye, I see a little bit of...

We've screamed for them for years. We've joked about it. We've featured them in auto insurance commercials. IBM was using the idea in their advertisements well over a decade ago. But now the flying cars are here. Flying cars aren't just science fiction anymore.Woburn, Mass.-based Terrafugia Inc. said Monday that its prototype flying car has completed its first flight, bringing the company closer to its goal of selling the flying car within the next year. The vehicle — dubbed the Transition — has two seats, four wheels and wings that fold up so it can be driven like a car....

Drivers hoping to slip the surly -- and traffic congested -- bonds of Earth moved a step closer to realizing their dream, as a US firm said it had successfully tested a street-legal plane. Massachusetts-based firm Terrafugia said their production prototype "Transition" car-plane had completed an eight-minute test flight, clearing the way for it to hit the market within a year. "With this flight, the team demonstrated an ability to accomplish what had been called an impossible dream," said founder Carl Dietrich. The two-seater craft, which has the rounded features of a Fiat 500 and collapsible wings, is on presale...

Is it a flying car or a driving aircraft? Either way, the Personal Air and Land Vehicle, or PAL-V for short, has just proved it can handle the skies as well as the highway, both at up to 180 kilometres (112 miles) per hour, its Dutch developers said Tuesday. The PAL-V is a gyrocopter that can fly as far as 500 kilometres (315 miles) at an altitude of up to 4,000 feet (1,200 metres). When it lands, it tucks away its rotor-blades and turns into a road-legal three-wheeled vehicle with a range of 1,200 kilometres. "In future, you will be...

A female passenger aboard a US Airways flight from Charlotte, N.C., to Fort Myers, Fla., was arrested after attacking crew members before being wrestled to the floor by an off-duty deputy aboard the flight, an arrest report released Wednesday said. The apparently intoxicated passenger aboard US Airways flight 1697 kicked, spit on, and cursed at a flight attendant after the crew member refused to serve her alcohol, according to the arrest report by Lee County Port Authority Police.

A Chicago-bound JetBlue flight from Boston carrying 86 passengers was diverted to Buffalo on Monday morning after a domestic dispute that involved a passenger resulted in a false bomb threat, FBI officials said.

On the evening of May 31, 2009, 216 passengers and 12 crew members boarded an Air France Airbus 330 at Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The flight, Air France 447, departed at 7.29pm local time for a scheduled 11-hour flight to Paris. It never arrived. At 7 o’clock the next morning, when the aircraft failed to appear on the radar screens of air traffic controllers in Europe, Air France began to worry, and contacted civil aviation authorities. By 11am, they concluded that their worst fears had been confirmed. AF447 had gone missing somewhere over the...

GULFPORT -- World War II era combat aircraft will land this afternoon and be here for three days, giving locals a chance to climb aboard them and look around as part of the Wings of Freedom Tour. They’ll also be seen in the skies above South Mississippi over the next three days as locals can buy rides on the historic planes. The tour will feature a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, a Consolidated B-24J Liberator and a North American P-51 Mustang, which will land at 2 p.m. at Atlantic Aviation and remain there until Friday at noon. Locals will get...

Capital-starved airlines worldwide are turning to Asian lenders to fund their ambitious fleet upgrades as the industry’s traditional streams of financing in the West dry up, experts say. In another sign of the world’s shifting economic fortunes, Asian banks, capital markets and leasing firms are stepping in to help airlines cope with rapid growth in travel, according to industry executives and analysts. “In this part of the world there is a lot of financing,” Jim Albaugh, chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airlines, told reporters during a visit to Singapore last month. “If you talk to the leasing companies ... they...

A century after 1st Lt. Alfred A. Cunningham took his first flight in 1912, Marine Corps aviation introduced the F-35B Lightning II aircraft into its fleet. The short takeoff vertical landing variant combined with fifth generation capabilities is a breakthrough in itself, matching the importance of the first Marine aviator and starting a new chapter in Marine Corps aviation history. 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing's Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 hosted the ceremony inducting the F-35B Lightning II multirole, joint strike fighter, into the Marine Corps aviation arsenal at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Feb. 24 at 2 p.m. Gen....

America's new long-range bomber program is "underway," will involve somewhere between 80 and 100 planes and will be delivered sometime in the mid-2020's. "And that's about all we're saying," Air Force Secretary Mike Donley told reporters. It's been known for some time that the bombers will not fly alone but will be part of a family of systems that may include UAVs and other systems. The really interesting part of all this is the secrecy and why it's so dark. It would seem to indicate several things: that the U.S. does not want potential competitors such as China or Russia...

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) has selected the Alenia Aermacchi M346 as its new advanced jet trainer, in preference to the Korean Aircraft Industries (KAI) T-50. A joint venture between IAI and Elbit will acquire some 30 aircraft and provide training courses to the IAF under contract. The Israeli defense ministry said that the deal is worth about $1 billion, and that the Italian government has agreed to purchase equipment from the Israeli defense industry worth a similar amount, in offset. KAI officials attending the Singapore Airshow last week made clear their displeasure at the Israeli decision-making process. KAI had...

PREMISE This article is a summary of the problems at Hawker Beechcraft beyond the context of the lingering effects caused by the 2009 economic downturn, and provides a possible prescription regarding a transformation that would allow for a much more viable entity to emerge. DISCUSSION Another reporting period has passed with more bad news coming from Hawker Beechcraft. Even a cursory glance through the company’s recent SEC filings can make for some unsettling reading if you are an industry watcher. If you happen to be an employee, supplier or debt holder, the news is downright scary. Management is either stoically...

NEW YORK — Boeing has locked in its biggest order ever. The Chicago airplane manufacturer said Tuesday that it has finalized an order from Indonesian carrier Lion Air for 230 planes — worth a combined $22.4 billion. Lion Air also has the rights to buy 150 more. The deal is the largest commercial airplane order ever for Boeing Co. by both dollar value and number of airplanes.

The head of memory chip maker Micron, long known for taking risks in stunt piloting, died Friday when a small experimental plane he was piloting steeply banked, stalled and crashed near an Idaho runway. Steve Appleton, who survived a similar crash eight years ago and had a reputation as a hard-driving daredevil, was the only person aboard the plane when witnesses said it crashed shortly after its second take-off attempt in Boise, according to safety investigators.

As United Airlines retires its last Boeing 737, the Tribune looks back at some of the aircraft the carrier has used from its start as the nation's first coast-to-coast mail and passenger service.

In the thick of the Cold War, the Soviet Union built an immense vessel to carry their troops across the seas and into Western Europe. Equipped with nuclear warheads and able to blast across the sea at 340 mph, the Lun-class Ekranoplane; part plane, part boat, and part hovercraft — is a Ground Effect Vehicle (GEV). A GEV takes advantage of an aeronautical effect that allows it to lift off with an immense amount of weight, but limits its flight to 16 feet above the waves. Its altitude can never be greater than the length of the wings. Think of...

Alaska Airlines, America's seventh-largest carrier in terms of passenger traffic, said on Wednesday that it would end a decades-old tradition of handing out prayer cards with its in-flight meals. The prayer cards, which the Seattle-based airline began offering in the 1970s after an executive spotted them on another airline, were intended to serve as a marketing strategy and to put passengers at ease, a spokeswoman said. The airline sent an e-mail to its frequent flyers on Wednesday explaining the change, which takes effect February 1.

Despite suffering severe injuries in the worst air race accident in the U.S. in more than a half a century, some victims have told their lawyer they would like to attend future races.

Australian aircraft engineers have called for Airbus A380 - the world's biggest passenger aircraft - to be grounded, after Singapore Airlines and Qantas found cracks in the wings of their super-jumbos. 'We can't continue to gamble with people's lives and allow those aircraft to fly around and hope that they make it until their four-yearly inspection,' said Steve Purvinas, secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association.

It will be a while before the NTSB issues its findings about the crash of The Galloping Ghost at the Reno Air Races this year. There were so many witnesses, however, and photographic and video coverage of the disastrous accident was so clear, that it did not take long for theorizing about the cause to converge on a single scenario.

...Bodies were strewn everywhere. Those who were unharmed scrambled in panic as the public address announcer attempted to calm them. That’s when Apfelbaum’s natural instinct kicked in. As an E.R. doc, Apfelbaum has seen his share of carnage. He has been among the first responders to air disasters that left no survivors. However, the aftermath of the Reno crash was unlike anything he had ever seen. Knowing that the available EMS crews would be overwhelmed, he hugged Julia, leapt over a fence and hitched a ride on a cart to get to the scene faster...

On a Friday in 1948, six aeronautical designers from the Boeing Company holed up in a hotel suite in Dayton, Ohio. They stayed put until Monday morning, except for the one who left to visit a hobby shop and returned with balsa wood, glue, carving tools and silver paint. The group emerged with a neatly bound 33-page proposal and an impressive 14-inch scale model of an airplane on a stand. Col. Pete Warden, the Air Force chief of bomber development, studied the result and pronounced, “This is the B-52.”

Europe and the United States headed for confrontation Wednesday after the EU won key legal backing for its proposal to slap carbon emissions charges on all airlines in its airspace from January 1. The European Union's top court threw out a bid by US and Canadian airlines to block the introduction of the scheme in a ruling that was warmly welcomed by the bloc but triggered an angry response from Washington. Though not a party to the case, the US Department of Transportation said it "strongly objects, on both legal and policy grounds, to the EU's plan to impose its...

A U-2 pilot completed the final manned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission over Iraq Dec. 18, as the last American troops withdrew into neighboring Kuwait. Maj. Steve flew his first mission over Iraq during Operation Southern Watch in the early '90s, so it was fitting for the 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron Airman to close out this chapter of his unit's history. The major, deployed from Beale Air Force Base, Calif., said he was proud to be part of this landmark event. "The best part about it was it was quiet for the folks on the ground," said Steve, a Lake...

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — The Marine Corps Harvest Hawk isn’t the average KC-130J Hercules. C-130 aircraft have been used by the U.S. military for more than 50 years. The Marines in Afghanistan use the KC-130J Hercules for aerial resupply, aerial refueling, battlefield illumination, and troop and cargo transport. In addition to its ability to accomplish traditional Hercules missions, the Harvest Hawk comes loaded with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and an infrared targeting system. The Marines in Afghanistan use this versatile variant of one of the Corps’ most venerable aircraft to provide close-air support and surveillance for ground troops. “We provide overwatch...

A surprising piece of news was buried in an article this week. Friday, The Mercury News reported the three top executives at Google, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt, are offering to pay $33 million to finish the restoration of the historic airship hangar at Moffett Field. The giant structure, built in the 1930s and called Hangar One, sits a few miles from the Googleplex and it’s well known the Google executives have special permission from NASA to park their jets at Moffett.

A friend sent me this. I've never heard of this guy before, and I had no idea this song existed. Never seen it on FR, as far as I can recall. You might want to look at this. It's a song about those who fly home our soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice. Warning: Kleenex may be required.Angel Flight

For more than two years, the disappearance of Air France Flight 447 over the mid-Atlantic in the early hours of June 1, 2009, remained one of aviation's great mysteries. How could a technologically state-of-the art airliner simply vanish? With the wreckage and flight-data recorders lost beneath 2 miles of ocean, experts were forced to speculate using the only data available: a cryptic set of communications beamed automatically from the aircraft to the airline's maintenance center in France. As PM found in our cover story about the crash, published two years ago this month, the data implied that the plane had...

An experienced pilot was lucky to escape with his life when his helicopter clipped a wire while erecting a Christmas tree and slammed into Auckland's popular Viaduct wharf. Greg Gribble walked away virtually unscathed after his aircraft spun out of control and crashed on the waterfront promenade during a live-streamed event on Wednesday morning to put up the 26-metre tall Telecom Christmas tree. The helicopter had been hovering just metres from the ground when the blades caught a wire, breaking off the tail and sending the chopper to the ground. Dramatic footage of the incident, carried live on the TVNZ...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Boeing Co. said Thursday that it was about to receive its largest order in company history by dollar value, just three days after breaking its previous record. The Chicago-based manufacturer said Jakarta-based Lion Air intends to sign a commitment to purchase 201 737 jets and 29 737-900 extended range planes valued at $21.7 billion.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Dubai's fast-growing airline Emirates kicked off the Middle East's biggest airshow Sunday with a huge order for 50 Boeing 777s, marking the U.S. aircraft maker's biggest-ever single order in dollar terms.