Gliders and other Flying Machines [Gallery]

My ASG-29E after landing at Messelberg airfield. The ASG-29E is an 18 meter, flapped glider with a retractable (hence, invisible) engine that delivers around 0.7 m/s climb. It cannot launch autonomously with the engine, but it is useful to prevent outlandings.

Another shot of my glider, taken at Bayreuth. The winglets are clearly visible; they help with directional stability and reduce induced drag, the drag that results from the higher pressure air below the wing flowing around the wingtip to the upper side of the wing, creating a twisted vortex called wake turbulence. The flaps that go over the complete wing are clearly visible, even though they are neutral on this picture.

One of my favourite pictures of all time. it is taken above the southern French alps, around the village of Saint-Paul-sur-Ubaye. The higher cloud base allows thermal flights to up to 4,500 meters, while at the same time, warm, humid air from Italy streams in, creating the lower layer of clouds. You avoid flying further east towards Italy, because there’s no hope of every getting back up into the region of higher clouds. But it’s a beautiful sight. Note the orange tape on the wing; it’s mandatory to fly in the French mountains to ensure that the white glider can be see over (potentially) snowy mountains.

Another picture from southern France, this time from the wave in around 6,000 meters. The instrument panel is dominated by an LX-9000 soaring computer that helps with navigation: terrain maps, airfield and their data, airspace maps, as well as various soaring-related calculations such as which airfields are reachable. Above left is the vertical speed indicator, next to it the airspeed indicator. Left of the LX is another vertical speed indicator, since replaced by a transponder. Right of the LX is the altimeter. Below the LX is the engine control unit as well as the radio. The stick contains remote control buttons (our own little HOTAS :-)) to control the LX.

The Mountain Wave Project Stemme S10 VT near the Annapurna mountain in the Himalayas. Notice the pods under the with for science instrumentation.

A U-2 during takeoff. The glider-style landing gear is clearly visible. The U-2 has three replaceable instrumentation pods: one is the long nose, and the other two are the wing pods.

Another U-2, with an E-3A AWACS in the background. This is a good illustration of the kinds of payloads that were added the the U-2. The lower rear fuselage is full of signal and electronic intelligence antennae, plus streamline satellite datalink on top of the fuselage.

A U-2 trainer (two cockpits) shortly before touchdown. The huge flaps are clearly visible, as is the “mobile”, the car driven by another U-2 pilot who reports exact height above the runway to the pilot to assist with a safe landing. Carl LaRue remembered that they had to be able to land without the mobile as well, for example, when the “landed out” at a non-U-2 airbase. However, whenever possible, they reduced the risk by using the support from the chase car.

A NASA ER-2, the atmospheric research variant of the U-2, with a Dodge Charger mobile chase car, probably photographed at Palmdale where they are stationed along the DC-8, SOFIA and a couple of Gulfstreams. You might notice how clean the aircraft is, despite the white color, where dirt and oil would be visible easily.

An F-106 Delta Dart, one of the first aircraft that was design with Withcomb’s area rule. You can clearly see how the fuselage gets thinner as the delta wing gets wider, attempting to keep the overall frontal area approximately constant. The F-106 was the successor to the F-102 Delta Dagger which performed unsatisfactorily at high speeds―it was not area ruled.

The NASA F-8 with the supercritical wing. The shape of the supercritical airfoil can be clearly seen.

A two-seat SR-71 just before or after air-to-air-refuelling; the refuelling door is still open. The large delta wing can clearly be seen, as can the engine pods and the spike that manages the supersonic shockwave.

An SR-71 running up its engines on the ground, probably blowing away the F-16 behind it. It is interesting to see that the diameter of the engine pods is on the same order of magnitude as the fuselage.

This is the only selfie-style image in this book. But I had to do it. I got to sit in an F-16 when I visited Nellis Air Force Base. Because of my love for the F-16 since I was a child, this was a very happy moment for yours truly. I was a bit sad that I wasn't able to fly ... :-)

An F-16 in its shelter, just before a mission. On the wing tank, Jan Stahl is looking through the maintenance log, while the crew chief (at the far right) prepares for starting the engine.

The F-16s are painted with several different schemes, this one is called the Arctic scheme. Others are specifically designed to replicate the paint scheme of Russian aircraft. The tail shows the serial number (this F-16 was built in fiscal year 1986, some 30 years ago!) as well as the tail code for Nellis (WA) and the squadron. While the serial number and the tail code are common for USAF aircraft, explicitly mentioning the squadron is not.

Jan preparing his “office”, maybe 15 minutes before take-off. The reclined seat, the heads-up-display and the huge bubble-canopy can clearly be identified.

Jan taxiing out under the big Nevada sky. There are not too many people I am jealous about; but in another life, I would have loved to have Jan’s job.

The cockpit of the A380 simulator. The systems are an extremely close replica of the real aircraft. But the visuals are not as good as the most recent generation of X-Plane/Prepar3D. The motion system helps, though. You can feel turbulence and the rumbling runway. Of course there are limits to the the sim’s ability to simulate accelerations realistically; it can never do more than one g sustained, and the travel available in the cylinders is also limiting.

The cabin of the prototype A350 used or flight testing. The cabin hosts lots of flight test equipment as can be seen here. There is no paneling, and, for example, the air conditioning pipes are directly visible.

The flight test engineers’ station in the cabin of the prototype A350. It replicates the cockpit displays, but also provides deeper access to the systems and the prototype-specific sensors (of which there are many).

Compare the this A350 cockpit to the A380 above; it has even bigger screens. But the general philosophy is unchanged. Notice these two massive plasticky humps left and right of the thrust levers? These are hand rests, so you can operate the trackball thad hides in front of them even when flying in turbulence.

The 350 in Toulouse.

Yet another Airbus cockpit, this time it’s the A400M. The commonalities with the A380 are readily apparent. A major difference are the heads-up displays. Also note the GoPros mounted on the panel, used to record the flight displays at Farnborough where this picture was taken.

The AS 350 Ecureuil I flew in 2018. It’s one of seven owned and operated by Helix. It was a cold February morning: this picture was taken after landing. when we took off, the ground was slightly covered by ice.

The rotor head of the AH-64 Apache. You can clearly see the levers for collectively and cyclicly changing the pitch of the rotor blades. The round cylinder on top of the rotor is the derotational unit where the Longbow radar can be mounted.

The Apache’s tail wheel, sturdy enough to withstand a 100 knot landing. This might become necessary if the tail rotor is inoperative; at 100 knots, the fuselage and vertical tail produce enough stability to keep the aircraft straight without the torque compensation provided by the tail rotor.

The glider that holds the record in speed and altitude, at the moment of touchdown at its homebase in Florida.

Me just before entering the rear seat of the F-16D during my flight with the Thunderbirds in Fort Wayne. Notice my name on the canopy, an example of the ever-present attention to detail around the team.

Major Jason Markzon and me before take-off.

Another Selfie, for obvious reasons :-) Fully suited up shortly before the canopy closes. Notice the reflections in the visor.

Screenshot from the GoPro that recorded my face during the flight. This picture has is from the pull over right after the vertical rolls.

I took this picture of Thunderbird 7 with my iPhone. As you know, iPhones have a slightly wide-angle lens, so this is an impressive illustration of how close we were.