U.S. Air Force Captain John S. Lappo had the heart of a jet pilot--skillful, bold and committed. However, the personality traits that served him so well on bombing missions during the Korean War and covert spy-in-the-sky missions over the Soviet Union also “grounded” him after a playful-but dangerous-stunt that involved the Mackinac Bridge.

On April 24, 1959, Lappo, a Muskegon, Michigan, native and his five-man crew were returning from a routine simulated bomb run to the Lockbourne Air Force base near Columbus, Ohio. As Lappo later confessed, “I always wanted to fly under a big bridge. I thought it would be the Golden Gate.” Suddenly, the Mackinac Bridge came into view. Lappo polled the crew about his scheme to fly under the bridge. After the crew responded affirmatively with a 4 to 1 vote, Lappo declared, “I’m taking her under!” At a speed of 425 miles per hour, the RB-47 Stratojet raced through the 150-foot clearance between the roadbed framework and the Straits. In Lappo’s words, “It was exhilarating to say the least!”

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An article about another Mackinac fly-under.

Mackinac Bridge lear.pdf (75.98 kb)

The latest issue of Air & Space magazine is out and it has some great articles.

I especially liked the articles on Mars rovers, the upcoming disposition of the remaining space shuttles, MiG vs F-18 war games, and the great Kelly Johnson. 

Check it out online

The attached video was filmed by some Air Force Joint Tactical Air Controllers (JTAC) in Tal Afar, west of Mosul, in Iraq

A marine unit got pinned down in the street. They set their video camera on the bumper of their armored HUM-V, which they were using for cover. Keep an eye on the opposing van parked just down the street.

You can hear them shooting back and forth. The rounds you can hear are from the Marines, and the ones you hear pinging  against the side of the vehicle with no accompanying pop are from the bad guys.

When the Marine says they just fired the "rifle," it means an F-16 aircraft just launched a Maverick missile. You can hear it come in and
see it strike the vehicle the bad guys were using for cover.

k6Air_Force.wmv (1.56 mb)

Continental and two former employees are on trial for involuntary manslaughter, for having allowed a piece of titanium known as a wear strip to drop off one of the airline's DC-10 planes as it taxied down the runway two aircraft ahead of the fateful Air France Concorde, on a hot July afternoon in 2000. Five minutes later, the Concorde, according to the charges, rolled over the debris, which pierced one of its tires, sending pieces of rubber flying. One piece of rubber apparently penetrated the Concorde's full fuel tank, which exploded in fire. As traffic controllers screamed "You have flames! You have flames!" to the pilots, the blazing Concorde plummeted into a hotel, killing all 109 people on board and four on the ground.

...Investigators have also raised other concerns: the doomed Concorde appeared to be overloaded with luggage from its planeload of German tourists, who were flying to meet their cruise liner in New York City; one of two routine daily runway sweeps at Charles de Gaulle Airport had reportedly been cancelled that day; and Concorde workers had allegedly neglected to replace a crucial tire spacer on the aircraft in maintenance work four days before the crash. Continental is the only company charged, along with the firm's former welder John Taylor, who fixed the titanium strip to the Continental DC-10, and his supervisor Stanley Ford. The French are also going after their own. In the same trial, Concorde's former head of testing Henri Perrier and former chief engineer Jacques Herubel as well as France's retired civil aviation chief Claude Frantzen are also charged with involuntary manslaughter for having failed to detect and fix faults in the aircraft that investigators believe contributed to the crash. If found guilty, the individuals may face prison terms of up to three years plus fines of about $71,000 each. Continental faces a fine of as much as $520,000.

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An amazing achievement that shows the innovation of private industry.  I can't wait to see these aircraft fly!

Virgin Founder, Sir Richard Branson and SpaceshipOne (SS1) designer, Burt Rutan, today reveal SS2 to the public for the first time since construction of the world’s first manned commercial spaceship began in 2007. SS2 has been designed to take many thousands of private astronauts into space after test programming and all required U.S. government licensing has been completed.

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The secret is out. The U.S. Air Force has confirmed the existence of the “Beast of Kandahar” UAV that was seen flying out of Afghanistan in late 2007. The jet aircraft – a tailless flying wing with sensor pods faired into the upper surface of each wing – is the RQ-170 Sentinel, developed by Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works. An Air Force official revealed to Aviation Week Friday afternoon that the service is “developing a stealthy unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to provide reconnaissance and surveillance support to forward deployed combat forces.”

Full Article, Aviation Week U.S. Air Force Reveals Operational Stealth UAV

Gizmodo has the scoop on a new aircraft deployed in Afghanistan possibly a variant of the Lockheed P175 Polecat.

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A formation of Chinese J-10 fighters celebrating China's 60th anniversary.

According to a recent article in the Economist:

SPYING is a sophisticated and expensive business—and gathering military intelligence using unmanned aircraft can be prohibitively so. Predator and Global Hawk, two types of American drone frequently flown in Afghanistan and Iraq, cost around $5,000 and $26,500 an hour respectively to operate. The aircraft themselves cost between $4.5m and $35m each, and the remote-sensing equipment they carry can more than double the price.

The article is about how blimps will be used in future surveillance and worth a read.

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