This short clip of the Vulcan Beachy Head flypast, the sound of that beast @ 2.40 is something else.
http://youtu.be/UkWO5zVPz4g

What's the funniest thing that you've seen happen at an airport or in flight?

An interesting watch. I don't really know that much about these kind of planes though.

This thread would be a lot busier if all aviation discussion took place here

A British Airways 787 is doing a tour of some UK airports tomorrow.

Bird strikes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKbC1amxwXA

How often do they hamper a flight?

Bird strikes:

How often do they hamper a flight?

>>>>>

So far as aware they are quite rare compared to the number of flights each day.

Light a/c are more prone to the danger of a
'Bug Strike' ! One summer when the air was full of bugs, one had entered and blocked the pitot head, resulting in all loss of air speed indication that can lead to disaster when climbing descending and performing other
manoeuvres. Being most essentail on final approach and landing if wishing to avoid a stall that would probably be impossble to recover from, being so near to the ground.
Upon landing sure enough I found the pitot firmly blocked
by a small insect.

Only one I can think of is the Miracle on the Hudson back in 2009. IIRC that was a double bird strike and both engines failed and that's why they ended up in the Hudson.

Sat in Paphos Airport a few years ago, we were told over the tannoy that our flight was delayed because an inbound plane ( one due to depart after us) had flown into an unusually large flock and suffered a major birdstrike on the nose.

I've sat through turbulance, aborted landings - neither of them left me as tense as knowing we were taking off into the direction of the sea with the "unusually large" presence of birds.

And this one:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE

I don't remember that one. I find the whole story of the Miracle on the Hudson fascinating, even though it happened in 2009. I've watched old TV interviews of the flight crew and everything I must be mad!

I got bored of the miracle one. While the pilot was no doubt incredible with what he did, it was the constant, over and over news about it, countless telly programs etc!!

It may not be widely recognised just how fortunate those passengers and crew were to have had Capt Sullenberg in the LH seat - Bearing in mind that after the bird strike
he had only around 2 minutes remaining in which to
select a suitable landing area to GLIDE many tons of metal to an immaculate landing in the river while over a
heavily built up area.
One offical commentat sated that were it not for the
fact that the elderly and highly experienced Capt
Sullenberger was an ex-military pilot then it was
beleived that any other civil airline pilot would not have had sufficient ability and skill as shown by
Capt Sullenberg to put an airliner down into that river
under the same conditions without disaster.

Well some of it was OTT I have to admit. I watched one video where the passengers and flight crew reunited in a hotel or something. Talk about cringeworthy I think it was from the CBS News 60 Minutes special about the incident. Have you seen that one?

There were so many interviews! In fact I even found out that one of the flight attendants from the Miracle incident was on ABC News last November talking about stressed flight attendants. One of my friends saw the story and mentioned it. Even Windows 8 is more interesting than that In fact I might go install it on my Mac right now

[quote=Stiggles;eek:

I got bored of the miracle one. While the pilot was no doubt incredible with what he did, it was the constant, over and over news about it, countless telly programs etc!![/QUOTE]

>>>>>


With so many channels to fill, countless repeats, and much dross having become normal practice, maybe a roster should be kept whereby repeats are limited to say 2 or 3 showings max. per year.

That would be a good idea. There are so many repeats on TV! As for the Miracle on the Hudson, why did they need to have so many TV shows about it and several different interviews? I've watched all the interviews and I noticed the content of a lot of them were very similar.

There was a Dispatches edition revolved around Ryanair the other day - they are threatening legal action now apparently.

A Disney film called 'Planes' - don't think i'll be catching it any time soon as it doesn't look very good.

Does anyone keep up with the CAA Travel Statistics (who release data about the number of passengers who pass through an airport each month & year)?

The loss of 4 lives in the helicopter ditching off Shetland of a Super Puma Helicopter that was carrying 16 plus 2 crew was tragic news this week, The Puma and its variants has not enjoyed an unblemished safety record over the past few years with a number of incidents world wide in addition
to those incurred with the Bristows fleet that serves oil rigs.

Although the cause of the crash has yet to be established, other than reports of a sudden loss of power, there have been several incidents of problems with the rotar gearbox.
As a consequence Pumas have been grounded pending further investigations.

Very sad, all credit to the rescue services for saving so many

For those who like aviation documentaries there was a new series on Dubai Airport on National Geographic which started tonight. If you missed it then it's sure to be repeated a lot.

I set that documentary to record but I haven't watched it yet. Might watch it at the weekend and see if it's any good.

Nice one, thanks!

Thank you.

I have set it to record as episodes 1 & 2 are repeated tomorrow afternoon.

Ha, I was in Dubai ariport on Saturday. It's immensely long! Takes a good 25 mins to walk from one end to the other.

I also had the good fortune to be flying on the Emirates A380. Very swish with its mood lighting and on board entertainment. You can even make phone calls from you mobile mid-flight.

Top banana! On the on-board entertainment can you view external cameras fitted to the aircraft?