A few randoms from the web

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

Just a few pics that I've picked up on my trawls round the web.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally this set was sent to me via email, A Russian owned airliner landed in Germany on a scheduled passenger flight. It came in on 3 engines and was immediately grounded by the German safety authorities. Here's why....

The faulty engine had been noted BEFORE the aircraft took of on a PASSENGER flight

to stop it windmilling they had tied it down with SEATBELTS removed from the cabin!

 

 

 

The three working engines were in an equal state of damage, but as they actually started the aircraft flew like it! The aircraft was apparently scheduled for a transatlantic flight! Suffice to say it didn't get any further than Frankfurt!

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Interesting shots Alan - those engines look a tad damaged!

[brett 2,310]

Cool set of pictures Alan.  Love the fighter/bomber combo.   

If I didn't see the pic's of the seatbelt's tied to the fan I wouldn't have believed the story, amazing.

[allardjd 1,853]

I've seen those photos of the seat-belted fans before from another source who claimed that the airliner was being operated by the Chinese.  There's little doubt it happened and someone did it but the details are suspect.

 

As for the USAF Airbus - don't hold your breath.

 

Great photos though.  Had seen some before but most were new and all are intersting.   Thanks for posting.

 

John

[snowingairlines 0]

Nice set of shots. I can only imagine what the cabin crew were saying on that flight. "If you notice that the engine fan blades are bent, please do not worry, the cabin crew are trained in just such an experience. Now sit back relax and enjoy the flight."

 

[brett 2,310]

The belts do look more like something the maintenance crew would use to hold them together. They have tags on them and are pretty hefty looking. The whole story could be made up from the picture itself. Urban legends do make for good stories though.

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

If you look at the aircraft in the third engine shot, the colour scheme seems to be that of an Aeroflot aircraft, I think the wing may be attached to something else though. Where ever the story came from, it's certainly worrying!

[Captain Caveman 0]

Hi all firstly nice pics alan and secondly if u look closely the engine is not connected to the aircraft wing, it is sat on a maintainence trolley(?) and the aircraft maybe just happens to b in the background?

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

I could see that the engine was on a trolley Glen, It just seems to be a remarkable coincidence, also bearing the Russians maintainence issues at times I find it highly probable that it was one of theirs. When I worked at Heathrow we had to de-plane a load of passengers and crew from an IL-86 that had been grounded by UK authorities as 3 of the tyres were down to the canvas and a service panel was held in by just 2 of its 10 screws!There were other issues as well but I cannot remember what they were.The aircraft was not allowed to leave until the problems had been rectified.

[britfrog 180]

The "russian " engine has been doing the rounds since 2001 according to snopes it has attributed to chinese and other airlines .

The engine which has 46 blades is a pratt and whitney JT9D-7J  which has never been used on a russian a/c and not in china since 2004 (production stopped  in 1990)

The safety belts were aooarently used while the engine was moved after suffering some kind of FOD

So we can assume this is a hoax.

 

 

[GHAO 0]

What I would give for a SeaVictor!

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

You and me both George ! 

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Not a picture, but a very interesting video :

 

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

Certainly different, I wonder what they'd have done had it proved satisfactory, they couldn never have put folding wings on the U2 so storage would be a problem.

[allardjd 1,853]

It was intended for the occasional operational mission where a U2 had no alternative base to use.  The production U2s had no in-flight refueling capability.  A prototype was lost in a refueling test when it broke up in turbulence behind a KC-97 and they deep-sixed the entire mid-air refueling concept for the plane.  To this day, U2s fly on what fuel they can take off with. 

 

I'm not aware that the U2 ever made any operational use of aircraft carriers beyond the proof-of-concept tests on the USS Ranger documented in the video that Chuck posted above, but if they had I doubt they would have advertised it much.  Thirty some U2 airframes are still in use and it may well be that this is still in their bag of tricks if needed (not sure if the hooks remain or if they were ever fitted to more than just one test aircraft).

 

I've been told by a former member of the U2 community that to this day, if you see big doings in the news that last more than a couple of days, there's a very good chance that there's a U2 in the area taking photos from an altitude of "...at least 70,000'."

 

John

[hurricanemk1c 195]

From the Facebook post it was taken from (the page was The Chicken Works: The Aviation Art of J.P. Santiago via Aviation-Pictures/Videos/News)

 

 

This stuff is golden- Lockheed U-2 carrier ops! Initial carrier trials were performed in August 1963 aboard the USS Kitty Hawk. More ops were done in February 1964 aboard the USS Ranger. Originally done as a way of giving the Navy eyes further over the horizon, the carrier quals dovetailed nicely into Operation Fishhawk, the 1964 U-2 overflights of the French nuclear test site at Murora Atoll in a remote part of the South Pacific. Murora was so remote it took the Ranger's battle group three weeks to reach the launch point and they had to travel those three weeks in radio silence to avoid tipping off the French. Two missions were flown over the test site in May 1964 from the USS Ranger.

Another set of carrier quals were done in February 1967 aboard the USS Constellation- the plan was to use the carriers to fly U-2s to overfly Israel in the run up to the Six-Day War if European nations balked at basing and overflight rights. This was because there was a gap in Corona imaging satellite capability. The last mission would be in May of that year and the next Corona launch would be after the needed time period. The USS Saratoga was in the Med readied for the U-2 missions, but Israel would win in June 1967 decisively before the mission was launched.