Fly Me Friendly

While at Avalon Airshow 2009, the FlightPathTV.com team got to interview a C5 Galaxy pilot and film the aircraft opening up prior to letting the public walk through. Together with Captain Lee (our media liaison) we made our way down the far end of the static area to where the C5, a KC135, DC10 tanker (not a KC10) and a pair of B1Bs were parked.

Damn that’s an enormous aircraft :)

We discussed the interview with the crew and one of the junior pilots was “volunteered” for it (the chain of command in action :) After a few discussions outside and some establishing shots, we put our earplugs in and they fired up the APU (very noisy). First up the nose was opened, lifting up over the cockpit and looking very much like a Great White Shark about to bite. The ramp was extended in stages with crew walking around to check everything was deploying correctly. Naturally, this started to draw a bit of a crowd at the public fence area.

Once the nose ramp was fully deployed we moved around to the tail where it was even noisier. A huge panel at the rear moved up and a pair of doors opened outwards. Once again a massive ramp slowly extended itself in stages, although this time there were a few problems with getting the rubber mats at the very end to sit right (typical that it would happen while filming). Apparently the rear ramp can be opened during flight but they don’t do that much any more.

Once everything was opened up and the APU shut down, we moved into the cargo hold and started the interview. Most of the crew sat around enjoying the show, heckling when the camera wasn’t running. We had a few interruptions as a RAAF F18 landed and taxied back, then the KC135 fired up its APU so it could extend its boom.

Eventually we moved upstairs to film the cockpit and crew space then complete the interview up there. I managed to get some shots out one of the escape doors and the hatch up on top. We also went back into the “passenger” area, a separate compartment between the wing & tail upstairs. This area is where any troops or specialists that may be travelling with a load will spend the flight (facing backwards). We were also shown the tail structure that’s above and behind the rear ramp. This area is unpressurised in flight and is bigger than the cargo hold of a C130. Wow!

The C5 Galaxy is definitely a HUGE aircraft and it was great to go clambering all over it. I’ve loaded the photos I took into the C5 Galaxy album in the gallery. A few will also make it into the Avalon 2009 album.

On my first day at Avalon Airshow 2009, the FlightPathTV.com film crew I was with spent about 3 hours in Lockheed’s F35 simulator. During this time, Ken from Lockheed (one of their human/computer interface team members) was working with a RAAF Air Commodore as he flew the aircraft through some example encounters. We also filmed Ken as he explained the F35′s systems, the cockpit interface and the STOVL version’s features.

What a freakin’ incredible piece of equipment the F35 is!

First up, there’s no HUD. All the information from the HUD is displayed on the pilot’s helmet, along with plenty of other information as required. The helmet’s movements are tracked and the displays adjust accordingly.

The main panel consists of two large LCD displays that appear almost as one. The panel can show any of the multiple information screens in any combination of sizes and positions with the pilot touching points on the screens to resize them, move them around and so on. There is a constant one inch high band across the top of the panel that has the information screens represented in miniature (with other information as well). Just touching one of the representations brings that screen up on the panel.

When a pilot enters the aircraft, they slot a mission cartridge into the system that contains information about the mission, munitions and the pilot’s default preferences for screen layouts. So, when the pilot turns the aircraft on, everything they like is all ready to go for them.

Throw in the sensor suite that includes infra-red cameras around the aircraft and you have an amazingly powerful real world display. In addition to showing on the panel, the sensor suite’s information can be displayed on the pilot’s helmet. Combine this with the movement tracker and the pilot can see a synthetic vision view of the world around them – like looking *through* the cockpit floor, wings, weather, etc. Simply amazing.

Being the IT geek I am (as well as an aviation geek), I was drooling at how well this interface worked. As if that weren’t enough, though, we were also shown how the computerised flight controls made it a LOT easier to focus on WHAT a pilot is doing rather than HOW they are doing it.

Say the pilot wants to initiate a 50 degree climb – they use the side-stick to put the nose where they want, set the throttle and then let go. The computers will keep the aircraft going where the pilot’s said. Total no brainer. The system takes the developments of the past decades and brings them into one incredible package.

There was, of course, more to it than this but I was still reeling from what I’d seen in front of me. I would have loved to jump in and go through the demo routine but we’d already been in there two hours and Carlo & Fletch had both had goes, so I didn’t want to overstay our welcome.

I’ve loaded some of the photos I took inside the simulator room into the F35 demo album on the gallery. Other photos from my two days at Avalon are also being uploaded into the Avalon Airshow 2009 album. Enjoy :)

It’s been over a week since I was at Avalon Airshow and I’m only getting around to posting about it now. Sure, I ran up a few Twitter entries about it but I’ve not had a chance to really blog it. This time it’s thanks to lots of work to do since the show finished, plus spending some good time with my son before he visits Argentina with his mom for a month.

I’ve also been editing photos before I can upload them. I’m not someone who can just slam the raw pix up online. I like to weed out a few first, plus edit those that need lighting towers removed (the bane of any airport photographer’s existance :) or any other gear like mobile lighting rigs, etc.

I’m getting there and the first few have been uploaded into the Avalon Airshow 2009 album on my flying gallery. I’ll upload more as time permits and post on the blog when it happens. I’ll also get around to posting what I got up to on the two days I was onsite along with other thoughts about the airshow.

You know, a rose by any other name would still have thorns. For those of you who may be wondering why I’m using the handle “Falcon 124″, this quick note explains all.

It would seem that my blog is getting noticed out there as according to Google Analytics, my traffic is up (yay). Even if I never went to check out the analytics information though, I’d still know that awareness was building, just by the volume of spam being automatically captured by the Akismet plug-in on the blog. There’s also the GMail spam filters on my email address – they’ve been trapping lots more too.

My thanks to those other blogs out there who have cross linked to me – that’s very much appreciated and I’m in the process of updating my Blogroll down the side of the page.

Meanwhile, at least I know that the spammers have noticed me :)

Every two years the Avalon Airshow is held at Avalon Airfield (YMAV) about an hour out of Melbourne on the way to Geelong. Aircraft range from warbirds to super hornets, 747s to C17s, lighties, loonies and the tradeshow. While nothing like Oshkosh, it’s still an amazing show lasting about a week and featuring a night airshow on the Friday (starts at dusk, goes into the night and typically ends with an F111 doing a ‘dump & burn’ and the huge wall of fire – great for killing your night vision). Watching combat jets launch at night on full afterburner is amazing (especially the F111) as is a Super Constellation taking off with the mixture full rich.

I’ve been an airshow volunteer working out on the tarmac at the past 3 airshows and attended a previous one on the trade day. It’s an amazing event and I’m usually working the warbird tarmac, surrounded by beautiful old aircraft. Our home base tent is next to the combat jets tarmac so we’re right in the heart of the action. While I’m on the warbird tarmac, I’m often also found marshalling at the exit of the combat jets tarmac or the junction between taxiway A and ‘the loop’ just in from ‘the keyhole’ (where the heavy iron is parked).

Thanks to this I’ve marshalled jets, transports and lighties, giving me great experience with a range of pilot ability (and a healthy respect for jet-blast). The military guys are precise and rapid, the heavy transports & commercial jets are enormous and they all understand that if you slow down the speed that you wave the bats about, they should slow themselves down too and get ready for a change of direction or stop.

Sadly, this does not apply to many of the pilots coming through in light aircraft. These poor buggers have never been taught how to follow the bats and have no idea. You signal them to keep going where they’re pointed and they turn & come right at you, so you tell them to turn left and they go right. DOH! After a few misadventures, I learned to give the lighties ‘special directions’ (you! go there – you! go there, etc) All good fun but kinda scary at times.

Unfortunately this year I’m not going to be able to spend 7 to 10 days working at Avalon. At first it was because things were flat out in the office and I couldn’t spare large amounts of time away, but now it’s ‘cos I’m unemployed and looking for work. It’s a major shame as I’d been looking forward to spending days on the fun side of the crowd barriers, mixing it up with the noise, catching up with friends and sending updates on Twitter. I am still going to go down for one of the trade days so I’ll get a partial fix, but it won’t be the same.

Better luck in 2011, I suppose.