The Aviation Thread [Contains Lots of Awesome Pictures]

CrzRsn said:
2nd one built, first one to be flown commercially according to the link.

EDIT: The first one is in much better condition

EDIT 2: Looks like the 5th 747 is currently the oldest active one. Followed by #8 and 9.

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Sorry, first delivered 747
 
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I hope not.
 
This bit of news belongs here.

MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. (AFNS) -- Fifty-nine years after the first C-130 Hercules was delivered to the Air Force, the 2,500th Lockheed Martin Corp. manufactured C-130 joined the 71st Rescue Squadron's fleet and legacy here Dec. 11.

The Air Force is the world's largest Hercules operator and Moody Air Force Base is home to its newest HC-130J Combat King II.

"This milestone delivery is a source of pride for our team and the global C-130 community," said George Shultz, the C-130 programs vice president and general manager at Lockheed Martin. "The Hercules is a global asset and versatile workhorse that is truly without equal. This delivery represents the C-130's strength in numbers and its ongoing relevancy to operators around the world."

Moody's Airmen and the rescue community echoed the feelings of having such an integral piece of Hercules history.

"This is such a historic flight because it's the 2,500th Hercules aircraft and Moody gets to be a part of making Air Force history," said Capt. Andrew Kim, a 71st RQS pilot who flew the aircraft from Marietta, Georgia, to Moody AFB. "The C-130 is a part of a long legacy of really great aircraft that have contributed to some huge feats for the Air Force as a whole and the entire rescue community. It feels really good to be a part of it and to be able to bring the plane and some history back to its new home at Moody's 71st."

Globally, the Hercules fleet performs various missions, but while assigned under the 347th Rescue Group's umbrella, it is the aircraft used to perform the rescue aspect of Moody's infamous motto to: attack, rescue and prevail.

"The C-130 is such a tried and true platform," Kim said. "With them we can do anything from low-levels to airdrops straight out of the schoolhouse and operate in austere environments that some of the other planes might not be able to handle.

"Bringing a J model back, especially a new one, increases our reliability rates," Kim added. "We can go out and execute the mission without having to worry about maintenance problems or breaking down so we can be much more dependable when we're out at our deployed locations."

Also on board for the aircraft's arrival was Col. Thomas Kunkel, the 23rd Wing commander, who is quite proud to welcome the new aircraft to Moody.

"We're a low-density, high-demand fleet down here, so every single aircraft adds a tremendous improvement to combat capability to the Air Force and to our warfighters all across the globe," he said.
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Link

It's incredible enough that they're still using the C-130 more than 60 years after its first flight, yet here they are still making them. :cool:
 
I read the other day that some B-52s will remain operational for at least another 25 years. That's a hell of a service life.
 
I guess when Russia dropped out of this whole arms race there was no real reason to keep going at such a high pace. None of the big countries are going to war with each other any time soon, and if they did it would probably turn into a nuclear war pretty quickly (by the side that's about to lose). And Irak, Afghanistan and so on have demonstrated that you can't bomb peace and democracy into a country (only worked once with Germany), in the end it's going to be a war of attrition and ground troops. Therefore lots of the newer military gear seems to be focused either in that area (better protection for "common soldiers") or reducing service/maintenance cost. And keeping the older, but still totally sufficient stuff around might be cheaper than developing a lot of new toys which you can't use anyway ;)

Don't get me wrong, I think it's incredibly interesting what the armies during WW2 came up with. Some of the stuff really was ahead of its time. But now things have slowed down and the current conflicts are mostly asymmetrical: Coalitions with overpowered gear but hesitation when it comes to sending ground troops on one side vs mostly religious nutjobs using leftovers from the cold war era on the other side, that can't wait until somebody starts sending ground troops (because then things start to become messy, for both sides). The technological advantage is clearly there, it's just more or less useless in the type of war that the west is forced to fight.

The newer stuff like the Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carriers are specifically designed to be very upgradeable and might last for the better part of a whole century. And at 10 billion dollars a piece they better last a while ;)
 
I'd even go as far as not counting Germany as "a bombing democracy into a country success", democracy was there before - just temporarily off track, so to speak.
 
It also took two world wars and several dozen million dead to even start driving the point about democracy home.

Wrong thread, though, so I'll shut up now. ;)
 
KaJuN said:
This bit of news belongs here.



Link

It's incredible enough that they're still using the C-130 more than 60 years after its first flight, yet here they are still making them. :cool:
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Outstanding aircraft! :bow: :clap:

Every Air Force that needs to move "stuff" uses them. They are also flexible in usage, with many variants like the HC-130J, with the AC-130 gunship probably the craziest.
 
Hatmouse said:
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Also being in Ohio and dealing with freezing fog every other damn day causing you to have to reschedule your Stage 3 check again for the 4th time, not to mention you can't even think about getting a checkride booked in because you know you're going to have to call back three times a week to get it rescheduled because the TAF was all like "Oh yeah bro that fog will lift up by 10am and you'll have 10 miles visibility and a 4500 foot ceiling, no problem" then that doesn't happen (surprise!) so you finally throw in the towel after waiting at the airport until 2pm and that fog haven't so much as moved and the 300 foot vertical visibility might as well be a cloud layer of butts just mooning you and everyone at the flight school with a few drops of dew serving as a metaphor for your hopes being urinated upon. :shakefist:


In less frustrating news, here's a video of the new Honda jet taking off:

 
Can't you go somewhere else to do your IFR?
 
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