Tag Archives: Meigs

Episode 233 – USAF Test Pilots School

Major Brandon “Cain’n” Abel

We talk with Major Brandon “Cain’n” Abel, and Major John “Manson” Appelt, Experimental Test Instructor Pilots from the USAF Test Pilot School. Greg Morris from Gauntlet Warbirds joins in.

The USAF Test Pilot School is a 48 week program for classes of 20-24 students. Graduates go on to test and evaluate weapons systems as test pilots or test engineers. We talk with Cain’n and Manson about the selection process for admission into the School, the variety of aircraft flown at the School, and what a flight test mission involves.

The week’s aviation news:

David gives us a debrief on the Airpigz.com meetup at the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. and at the Udvar-Hazy Center next to Dulles.

F-22 by David Vanderhoof

In this week’s Australia Desk report:

Qantas experiences teething problems with its new alliance partner as their booking system allocates premium economy seats on Emirates aircraft – a class not available with that carrier.

Tiger Airways profits slip as they await a ruling by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission on their proposed takeover by Virgin Australia.

Jetstar Japan takes delivery of two new A320s.

The first former RAAF C-130H to be gifted to Indonesia (formerly A97-006) takes to the skies following deep maintenance in preparation for the transfer.

The USAF confirm they are sending two F-22 Raptors to this year’s Australian International Air Show (Avalon), and unlike their last visit in 2011, this time they’ll be putting on an aerial display.

Grant is heading to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia this week as a guest of Malaysia Airlines to cover their launch into the One World Alliance.

Find more from Grant and Steve at the Plane Crazy Down Under podcast, and follow the show on Twitter at @pcdu Steve’s at @stevevisscher and Grant at @falcon124. Australia Desk archives can be found at www.australiadesk.net.

Fairey Barracuda

In this week’s Across the Pond segment:

Naval Air Historian Matt Willis joins us to discuss his new book on the Fairey Barracuda a mono wing fleet air arm torpedo bomber from the second world war. Designed to be a mulit functional aircraft, the ‘Barra’ suffered reputational challenges from its perceived weaknesses. However, it proved itself many times and flew well into the ‘50’s.

Not a single complete airframe is left of the 2,600 Barracuda’s built but there is a project being delivered by the Bluebird team and supported by the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton to recreate a lasting memory to this both beloved and sometimes sneered upon aircraft. To Pieter, it is of course the chariot on which his father flew the majority of his fleet air arm missions and activities and therefore remembered with a little more fondness than others.

Matt can be found at www.navalairhistory.com and on Twitter @NavalAirHistory.

Matt’s published books include: Blackburn Skua and Roc and Junkers Ju 87 Stuka.

Naval History Links:

In Memorium:

Mentions:

USAF Test Pilots School

Opening and closing music courtesy Brother Love from the Album Of The Year CD. You can find his great music at www.brotherloverocks.com.

Episode 177 – Kurt Barnhart, Unmanned

Kurt Barnhart is Professor and head of the Department of Aviation at Kansas State University. He’s also Executive Director of the Applied Aviation Research Center which focuses on integrating unmanned aerial systems into the national airspace system. Kurt been a National Association of Flight Instructors’ Master Flight Instructor since 2003.

The week’s aviation news:

In this week’s Australia Desk report: Virgin Australia re-branding completed, Polynesian Blue re-branded as Virgin Samoa, Sydney International Airport to upgrade & reconfigure its terminals, China Southern to increase its presence in Australia & is looking for a more Aussie feel to its services, Scoot looks to fly to Sydney from Singapore while it’s CEO has a possible Freudian slip when talking about the value of low cost carriers. Find more from Grant and Steve at the Plane Crazy Down Under podcast, and follow the show on Twitter at @pcdu. Steve’s at @stevevisscher and Grant at @falcon124.

This week on Across the Pond, Pieter brings back Gareth Stringer and Tim Robinson for our monthly update on aviation news in Europe. Tim has visisted Dubai for the Airshow and brings back stories on Qatar Aiways and the fights with Airbus over the A350-1000 modifications. Gareth tells us about the next edition of Global Aviation Resource monthly digital aviation magazine and we discuss our favourite photo of 2011 on The Hangar. Find Gareth at www.globalaviationresource.com and Tim at www.aerosociety.com.

Mentioned in the episode:

Follow the @AirplaneGeeks on Twitter and on Facebook, send us email at thegeeks@airplanegeeks.com, or leave a message on our listener line: (361) GEEKS01.

Opening and closing music is provided by Brother Love from the Album Of The Year CD. You can find his great music at http://www.brotherloverocks.com/.

Post photo: ‘Miss Demeanour’ a Hawker Hunter that features in UK Airshows owned by Jonathon Whaley. Picture is Courtesy of Gareth Stringer and Global Aviation Resource.com.

Episode 115 – More Manno

FlightcrewZoo.com

Airline Captain Chris Manno makes a return visit to tell us how many pilots it takes to fly an airliner. He also gives us his insight into things going on in the industry. Chris blogs at JetHead and you can find his collection of aviation themed cartoons at FlightcrewZoo.com.

Gavin Werbeloff, travel_buddha on Twitter, helps out as a guest co-host. Jon Ostrower, the FlightBlogger, steps in for a bit to contribute to the conversation and give us a Boeing 787 update.

The week’s aviation news:

Follow the @AirplaneGeeks on Twitter and on Facebook, send us email at thegeeks@airplanegeeks.com, or leave a message on our listener line: (361) GEEKS01.

Opening and closing music is provided by Brother Love from the Album Of The Year CD. You can find his great music at http://www.brotherloverocks.com/.