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Pan Am and the Salad Days

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Pan Am and the Salad Days

Old 09-12-2019, 02:47 PM
  #1  
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Default Pan Am and the Salad Days

I watched an old movie about the girls on PAA. Romanticized I'm sure but the movie wasn't all that far off. Those were the salad days and the girls were pursued by some pretty heavy hitters.
I hated to see Pan Am go. They were the aristocrats of airline travel. Pan Am opened up just as the guys from my old squadron were getting back from Vietnam. I went a different route because I initially wanted to go into flight test. Many of my old squadron mates ended up at Pan Am. After Pan Am folded it seemed most the former Pan Am guys of my vintage ended up at United. The squadron that they were in in Vietnam got shot up pretty bad so they had it rough for a number of years.
My last flight I had a jump seat rider who gave me his ID. I looked at it and said - I thought you were dead. The Squadron gets shot up and you disappear. What happened?- He said they transferred me to do secret missions flying into Cambodia. I said I thought that must have been exciting. He said exciting yes but we accomplished little. First we attached 2.7 rockets to the helicopter to shoot at the NVA and damned near shot ourselves down. Then we decided gun fire was safer so we would go roaring in with a gun blazing out of every door. Don't think we ever hit a darned thing, just entertained to poor NVA soldiers tired from marching from North Vietnam.
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Old 09-12-2019, 02:51 PM
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I'm not sure where this post goes but certainly not in this subforum.
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Old 09-12-2019, 03:49 PM
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Remove it.
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Old 09-13-2019, 03:53 AM
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Pooch,

Thank you for your patriotic service to our country! I see no reason to remove this post, but I am not one of the moderators so my opinion does not count. I hope it remains and that you add more. I enjoyed your post and hope you will tell us the rest of the story! Did you go on to “flight testing” after Vietnam? Where did your career path take you?

V/R

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Old 09-13-2019, 03:59 AM
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Originally Posted by ChecklistMonkey View Post
I'm not sure where this post goes but certainly not in this subforum.
This subforum is the proper place for old aviation stories.
On the index page, Hangar Talk is listed as: “For non-aviation-related discussion and aviation threads that don't belong elsewhere”.
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Old 09-14-2019, 06:29 AM
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It is confusing here. An excellent forum in many ways but it obviously been in invaded by people whose days are spent being something they are not. So you don't know who you are talking to, a real pilot or some make believe blogger. The 60s were the salad days of jet flying and yet many pilots were being killed flying in a half war. Too many spent the best years of their lives as prisoners. I had the best of fortune I was graduate engineer and a pilot. Since this was the "new" test pilot I was sought after by companies building aircraft. I was surprised to learn most test flying jobs are rather routine and short lived. If a guy wanted to fly and become a really good pilot he joined the airlines. That's what I did.
I worked on my Masters in Aircraft design back in the 60s the battle of wither a pilot should be part of the airplane or a lone button pusher was already raging. To me the airplane is like an "Iron Mans" suit when you strap into that seat you become the air planes' brain and not an observer.
To me the greatest loss to pilots in 9/11 was the loss of their freedom to manage the airplane. The government has taken over the air plane and it was government incompetence that got us into the mess to start with.
An airplane gets its stability from a large tail plane. If the air flow over the airfoil accelerates to Mach 1 shock waves form and its center of pressure changes. A larger tail plane is needed. This produces greater drag. To improve fuel burn a smaller tail plane is in order. One can balance it by putting the engines on the tail. This means running the fuel line to the engines from the wing spar under the passenger seats to the engines. A most unsatisfactory solution. Another solution is extremely slow cruise speeds. ie.79 Mach. To me a disgrace in this era. Why not Canards to deal with this problem. The operational window of a jet liner is so small one would think the canard solution would be possible.
Much ado about winglets would make a person believe span wise flow is a new subject. Its not. Why hasn't anyone turned the span wise flow of energy loss to thrust component. It seem the bulk of aircraft development comes from the simple minds of the marketing department.
Lightening strikes of carbon fiber surfaces. Carbon fiber delaminates from the inside. The screen solution of the 787 is studied. But that is a long range airplane. Long range plane in which lightening strikes seldom happen because they have the fuel to fly around the storms. It is the short haul airplanes that take the bulk of the lightening hits.
Fly by wire troubles me the rise and fall of and electric current creates magnetism, the rise and fall of magnetism creates electrical flow. This can cause unwanted electrical flow in the wire. The wire bundles are packed with unpredictable voltage to passengers needing their video games because they are too stupid to read. Air planes have an amazing ability to do the unexpected.
Life of a modern air plane must last at least 40 years. So does the modern pilot's flying career. Some time in that career you can be assured of an event that will take you to the limit of your abilities. Be sure your abilities are up to it.

Last edited by pooch817; 09-14-2019 at 06:56 AM.
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Old 09-14-2019, 09:13 AM
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But you already know the answer to all of those questions:


Cost analysis.
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Old 09-14-2019, 09:22 AM
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Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes View Post
But you already know the answer to all of those questions:


Cost analysis.
Cost analysis is drafting with crayons.
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Old 09-14-2019, 09:33 AM
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Originally Posted by pooch817 View Post
It is confusing here. An excellent forum in many ways but it obviously been in invaded by people whose days are spent being something they are not. So you don't know who you are talking to, a real pilot or some make believe blogger. The 60s were the salad days of jet flying and yet many pilots were being killed flying in a half war. Too many spent the best years of their lives as prisoners. I had the best of fortune I was graduate engineer and a pilot. Since this was the "new" test pilot I was sought after by companies building aircraft. I was surprised to learn most test flying jobs are rather routine and short lived. If a guy wanted to fly and become a really good pilot he joined the airlines. I did some test work but ended up in the airlines.
I worked on my Masters in Aircraft design back in the 60s the battle of wither a pilot should be part of the airplane or a lone button pusher was already raging. To me the airplane is like an "Iron Mans" suit when you strap into that seat you become the air planes' brain and not an observer.
To me the greatest loss to pilots in 9/11 was the loss of their freedom to manage the airplane. The government has taken over the air plane and it was government incompetence that got us into the mess to start with.
An airplane gets its stability from a large tail plane. If the air flow over the airfoil accelerates to Mach 1 shock waves form and its center of pressure changes. A larger tail plane is needed. This produces greater drag. To improve fuel burn a smaller tail plane is in order. One can balance it by putting the engines on the tail. This means running the fuel line to the engines from the wing spar under the passenger seats to the engines. A most unsatisfactory solution. Another solution is extremely slow cruise speeds. ie.79 Mach. To me a disgrace in this era. Why not Canards to deal with this problem. The operational window of a jet liner is so small one would think the canard solution would be possible.
Much ado about winglets would make a person believe span wise flow is a new subject. Its not. Why hasn't anyone turned the span wise flow of energy loss to thrust component. It seem the bulk of aircraft development comes from the simple minds of the marketing department.
Lightening strikes of carbon fiber surfaces. Carbon fiber delaminates from the inside. The screen solution of the 787 is studied. But that is a long range airplane. Long range plane in which lightening strikes seldom happen because they have the fuel to fly around the storms. It is the short haul airplanes that take the bulk of the lightening hits.
Fly by wire troubles me the rise and fall of and electric current creates magnetism, the rise and fall of magnetism creates electrical flow. This can cause unwanted electrical flow in the wire. The wire bundles are packed with unpredictable voltage to passengers needing their video games because they are too stupid to read. Air planes have an amazing ability to do the unexpected.
Life of a modern air plane must last at least 40 years. So does the modern pilot's flying career. Some time in that career you can be assured of an event that will take you to the limit of your abilities. Be sure your abilities are up to it.
I did about 8 years of Test work but it was pretty bland stuff. Most of my flying was airline. The people at Lockheed's Skunk works developed the SR 71. The Spike produces 80 % of the thrust. I wonder if these new high by pass engines could take a plane higher and faster. Is high speed subspace travel possible with air breathing engines.
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Old 09-14-2019, 10:35 AM
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Originally Posted by pooch817 View Post
I did about 8 years of Test work but it was pretty bland stuff. Most of my flying was airline. The people at Lockheed's Skunk works developed the SR 71. The Spike produces 80 % of the thrust. I wonder if these new high by pass engines could take a plane higher and faster. Is high speed subspace travel possible with air breathing engines.
Isn't the limiting factor subsonic vs supersonic flow through the engine? Wasn't that the point of the complex inlet system, to keep subsonic flow? At some point, it has to be supersonic to go faster, which gets you into scramjet territory in terms of keeping the fuel lit.
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