Hawaiian Airlines DC-10 overshoot

We thought a motorboat audio soundtrack would be an appropriate way to wrap up our posts for the year 2012.

Here's an excerpt from the official investigatory transcipts of the cockpit tape:

Pilot 1 : "Let's evacuate this thing"

Pilot 2 : "Oh (...)"

        

Lufthansa 747-8i D-ABYD landing LAX

More LBBC pics ... I dig those "sawtooth" motors ...

F-100 Super Sabre

It just wouldn't feel like the holidays without something from the Century Series.

Likely these would soon be redesignated QF-100's ... they were being converted to target drones at GYR.

And probable that both are at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico now, having fallen victim to some Tomcats.

  

Merry Christmas From Airplane Life !!

On Christmas 2012, we wish a Merry Christmas to our readers around the world. 

Korean A-380 HL7614 Takeoff LAX

Man, we feel kinda stupid today for believing that apocolypse crap yesterday.

Oh well, I guess it's not the end of the world ...

Now where were we. Another LBBC shot from LAX.

They say those big Airbusses are, "runway hogs." This shot was taken down along the beach, and she's still cycling gear.

  

Apocalypse 12/21/12

***Airplane Life Classics***

The sun is now setting on Planet Earth's short era of Human civilization.

Soon we will all be vaporized into the same cosmic dust from whence we came.

I sit before this old computer one last time, and wonder how my grandfather must have felt when he made the very first Airplane Life post on the internet back in 1964. 

Regrets? Sure.

I regret not drinking those last few bottles of Scotch. We just dumped them down the toilet rather than allow them to be enjoyed by the Martians, Giant Nuclear Cockroaches, or whomever it is that inherits this place.

And so it goes ... See you in oblivia ~

China Eastern A340-600 B-6053 LAX Skyteam

We'll be posting some new LAX images by our Long Beach Bureau Chief  in the coming days.

He's now using a Nikon D7000 ...

C-5 Galaxy Steerable Mains

The rear mains of the Galaxy are steerable. Makes parallel parking easier.

You can see them skewed in these dynamic photos.

 

Tillamook Air Museum, Oregon

Pictures from the Tillamook Air Museum.

There must be more somewhere, but we're not quite sure where they are ...

We'll find them someday ...

~ ~ ~ 

The Tillamook Air Museum is not far from the Tillamook Cheese Factory Tour.

We reccomend that as a good tour to go on.

Unfortunately, we can't find any of the pictures that we took at the cheese factory ...

We'll find them someday ...

Hey, that's a nice '93 Thunderbird. We used to have one. 'Never shoulda sold it ... 

Smoking Section on the Plane

From the Golden Age of Aviation ...

Or maybe this was the Marlboro Red era.

Hard to tell  ...

'Kinda doesn't look like a Stratocruiser ...

MIA-LAX American 777

Our Carribean Correspondent was boarding AA299 earlier today, when the gate agent noticed his, "Airplane Life," T-shirt (not yet available to the general public; our distributor laid-off half of their staff when Obama was re-elected), and gave him a free upgrade.

She assigned him, FIRST CLASS - Seat, "1A."

How cruzin' does that look ...

We appreciate the upgrade, and reccommend, "AMERICAN AIRLINES," to all of our blog viewers!

And a Special Thanks goes to Miami AA Gate Agent, "Ann." You're Awesome!

~ ~ ~ 

But we can't help but remember a day when one would never consider flying between this city-pair on anything less than a NATIONAL 747.

We still have a flight bag from that bygone era  ....

     

  

Long Live The Dobbs Lot!

Auto relink to our blog-friend on this one ... Totally Jacked Up Aircraft Photos

Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas with daughter Stella del Carmen

We saw these folks at London Heathrow on January 7, 1999.

They ended up on the same British Airways 747-400 to LAX that I was on. I would have chatted with them on the plane, but they weren't in the "World Traveller" cabin.

I did walk alongside of them to Customs and Immigration where they got preferential treatment and I didn't - even though I had a USA Passport.

Here's a weird link to a picture that one of the paparazzi took that day :  LINK

And here's how all of them look nowadays :  LINK

بنت الهرم

This is the Bent Pyramid of Sneferu, as photographed by Captain Jivehead while streaking high over Dashur in a World MD-11.

Around 2600BC, some non-union construction workers started building this structure in reverence to The Great Sneferu.

It was unstable, and they revised the construction plans part-way through. I would imagine the hardest part was reworking the electrical.

Interim Blog Posting

We've been busy, so here's some Calamari.

Princess Andromeda

Here's an image submitted by our East Coast Astronomical Object Photographer, "ES."

This is the Andromeda Galaxy, better know to most of us as NGC 224.

Our own Milky Way Galaxy will be smashing into this in just under 4 billion years.

Or around the same time we pay off the National Debt.

The picture you see here was taken with a used lens that cost $25.

It is an aggregation of 270 individual 16 MP images, each with shutter speed of 1.6s.

Pretty cool, huh?

Los Alamitos 2012

Snapshots from the Wings, Wheels, and Rotors Show by our Long Beach Bureau.

G-BOAG Concorde

Some shots of G-BOAG at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

Here is G-BOAG when we saw it at London Heathrow.

The 737 shown in a couple of these pics is the FIRST 737, it's a -100.

I could definitely picture myself seated on this aircraft crossing the Atlantic.

A supersonic WC.

Muddy Takeoff From Russia

For wet runway operations, it's important to calculate a "friction coefficient."

Car Full Of Model Airplanes

Sometimes, a blog entry will fall into your lap.

That's what happened when I went to the gas station today.

This guy's fleet ran the gamut from glider to electric to gas to ducted fan. Be sure to notice the HU-16 Albatross at the bottom, he pointed that out to me.

He also assured me that he had more at home, and recited an impressive list.

Curiosity Plane Crash

Airplane Takeoff Atlanta Airport

They did a crummy job scanning these.

Air Force One SAM 28000 at LAX

JUST IN from our Long Beach Bureau Chief. The VC-25 is carrying the President, who plans to meet with suffering middle-class Americans and small business owners attend a fundraiser with Hollywood luminaries at the Ritz-Carlton.