Latest / Flyer Magazine / Three fantastic NASA aircraft - The FLYER Show - 9th April 2026

Transcript

Three fantastic NASA aircraft - The FLYER Show - 9th April 2026 · Flyer Magazine

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_06: Hello and welcome to this week's function from an absolutely bloody glorious once week.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_06: It's lovely.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_06: My name's Ian Seeger.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_08: I'm Ed Helix and I'm Dave Corderwood.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_06: In this week's show, we'll be talking about NASA's greatest ever aircraft.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_06: Except it's not quite that.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_06: We kind of barred ourselves from picking things like the space shuttle and stuff like that.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_06: There's some obvious choices where you go that's the winner straight away.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_06: Exactly.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_06: So we kind of we've got rid of those.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_06: So we're going for the less obvious choices, but I still think I've got the greatest aircraft of all, regardless of that.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_06: Um anyway, last week we spoke about the cost of rising fuel and some of the ways of saving money.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_06: Um I think this week's top tip from Sky Demon will be of use.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you very much, Sky Demon, for supporting the channel.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_04: Hi, I'm Rob from Sky Demon, and here's another top tip.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_04: When you've finished planning, you may wish to share it with a friend.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_04: To do this, tap on root and then drop down to share, then choose by mail.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_04: This will create a canned email which contains the SkyDemon route and a route in a couple of other formats, as well as some briefing information as well.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_04: Pop your friend's email address in here and send it off.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_04: They can then open the attachment to view it in their Sky Demon.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_04: For more information, check out our website www.skydemon.ero.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_05: There you go.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_05: Sharing is caring.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_05: Sharing is caring.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_05: I like that.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_05: Actually, I think that's a great I think that's a real kind of nice community thing, isn't it?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_05: Like plan a route, share it with your mates, let's all go flying.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and to be honest, if you you know, playing planning a route from here to, I don't know, Solent or something.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_06: That's that's no I mean Solent.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_06: Leon Solent is what I meant.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_06: There's nothing particularly challenging in that.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_06: But if you're gonna do one to, I don't know, the south of Italy and it's the first time, there's a whole bunch of stuff.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_06: Being able to share that with people and go, uh have a look at this, would you?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_06: And tell me if I've messed anything up.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_06: It's just a good, it's a great thing.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_06: People should share more.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_06: Do you share your Sky Demon roots?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_05: Tell us in the comments.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, talking of uh ideas of going flying, and the weather is, like you say, amazing.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_05: Should we see if Simon thinks this is gonna continue?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: Eden all, hope you're doing well this evening.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: Looking forward to the weekend.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's not too bad a weekend, actually, for flying.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Just got to be a little bit selective on finding the windows.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this is the forecast then for tomorrow, for Friday.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: Plenty of cloud around you, see across many parts of England and Wales.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: Quite misty, quite murky, I think, at first.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: But you see how through the day the cloud does tend to break best of that cloud through the morning, or the sunshine through the morning, across northern England and Scotland.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: But look at the thick cloud coming through Ireland and brings some drizzle onto southwestern coasts of England, into western Wales, rain through Ireland, and I think the channel gradually becoming more murky, more drizzly as the day goes on.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Stays okay through many eastern and northern areas.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Typical bases here are probably right at 4,000 feet, tops at about 8,000 feet.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: But further west, we're looking at bases below a thousand feet, and the tops about 12 to 15,000 feet over Ireland.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: As I say, western south are becoming increasingly murky.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that front passes eastwards early on Saturday morning.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: So rain at first across western Scotland, northwest England, Wales, and southwest England.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: But look how the rain passes eastwards then through the morning, so that by midday it's kind of off the eastern parts of England and the east of Scotland.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: Notice these better conditions following in to the west behind the front.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there we become very firable.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: Bases probably getting to around about three to four thousand feet, and the tops by then at around 10,000 feet.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Heavier showers getting into western and southern parts of Ireland though.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: And what will happen through the afternoon is those showers will spread east through Ireland, reaching western Wales and southwest England.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: The wind's picking up here, but for many areas, as you can see there, actually, today's pretty fair into the afternoon with similar cloud basis.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Overnight into Sunday, um, we see further showers affecting western areas, and really they're there from the word go through Sunday.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: A windier start to the day for many areas.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Central and eastern areas are going to be bright, broken clouds, sunny spells.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: But look how the showers rattle their way eastwards through the afternoon, some of them becoming heavy and thundery, and just about anywhere we'll see those, always tending to be heaviest in the west and the south.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: Risk of hell, risk of thunder.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'm gonna go with bases probably around two to four thousand feet, tops of 15 to 20,000 feet, but could be higher in some of the bigger cumulatives clouds towards the west and the south, and some big ones rattling through the channel and along the southern coast of England.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: So, as you see, a much shower day through Sunday.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: And showers and returning polar maritime air masses is something that we talk about at Aviation Weather School.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: My next part one Aviation Weather School is going to be held on the consecutive Tuesday evenings of the 12th and 19th of May between 6:30pm and 9 pm.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be absolutely super to see you there.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: And you can go to weatherschool.co.uk or use the QR code to find out more and book your place now.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I will leave you with that.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: Have a fantastic and a safe flying weekend.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Try and take advantage of those windows if you can.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: I guess looking at that, it looks like for most of us Saturday is marginally the better day.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: Have fun, stay safe, and I'll see you next week.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Bye bye for now.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_05: It's looking nice, though maybe going a bit chilly.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I think it's gonna go potentially a bit wet as well.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, okay.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_06: Get that flying in though.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_06: I've I've I've put my headset in the car.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah, I think we get finished early.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, a sneaky flight after recording today, maybe.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_05: Will be.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_05: Right, should we have some news?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_05: Ed, you're first up.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_05: I'm up first, and I have uh great news.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_05: Vertical aerospace has made don't yawn.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_05: This is exciting stuff.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_05: I know, I know, I know.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_05: Vertical aerospace have made their transition.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_05: And you're wondering what?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_05: But this is this is a big deal because uh Vertical Aerospace, who are uh the UK's uh big eVTOL company, uh they've got their um their VX4 multi-rotor aircraft being flight tested at uh Cotsworld Airport up at Kemble.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um and they have made their first piloted full-scale transition.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_05: So they've lifted off vertically and transitioned into um wing-borne flight.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um and this is transition is a difficult and challenging phase for any EV toll company.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_05: Joby, who are probably the world leaders in EV toll, they did this a year ago.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_05: Uh vertical have just done theirs.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it was done by uh flown by uh test pilot Paul Stone.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_05: And uh it's difficult because it requires a stable shift from vertical lift to wing borne flight.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and there's a whole bunch of and I think we take for granted the fact that airplanes are the way our aeroplanes fly is is a pretty known thing.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_05: But you go from from uh from vertical flight and being sustained on thrust to wing borne.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_05: There's some challenges there.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_05: So I mean they've all got to do it, because otherwise you just get a lift.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_05: That's it, yeah.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_05: So um anyway, it's um it's a big deal for vertical because they're reliant on funding and they've just had another they've just announced another major financing package of 850 million pounds.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_08: Wow.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_05: So um uh that's gonna uh help them fund their disappear.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it's certification is expensive business, isn't it?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_05: We know this.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_05: Uh they've obviously got their Velo electric air taxi, um, which they're they're looking at a 2028 certification date for.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um and basically they're 850 million, there's like 50 million instant inequity, another 30 million coming along soon, and then 800 million in flexible uh future capital from their investors.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_05: That's a mighty large amount of money.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_05: It is.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_05: I it's uh there seems to be no end of funding.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_06: Do you feel honestly that in your lifetime you will take an electric E Vito type taxi?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, I don't mean on some press junket.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_06: No, but in part of your normal.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_05: As practical I'd be surprised.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_05: I I'd love to, but I'm I'm not sure that I will do something where it will be available to me.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_05: But I time will tell.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_08: I think uh the cost of operation uh is going to be quite high, isn't it?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_08: These these aircraft are gonna be quite expensive to buy.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_05: But therefore, and of course we're all wondering, it's like it it's still I still struggle to see why e V toll is different to a helicopter.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_08: Well it's big difference, it's electric.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_08: I know but supposed to be quiet and pollution free.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_05: But all of these I mean I I think all of these electric air the these electric EV tolls I think fundamentally are probably going to end up being some kind of hybrid power system to be successfully practical.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_05: So you might as well.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_06: They're raising huge amounts of money across the board.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_05: I know it's not all great news for vertical, because um back in February, uh Archer Aviation announced that they were suing Vertical because they're like, You've you've infringed on some of our patents.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_05: But it does seem like the whole E V Toll game is there's like the you get different you've got people in the various companies moving, I mean someone from vertical move to Archer, and so it's it's it's all musical chairs.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_05: And and I guess there's only so many ways you can disagree with electric.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_05: No, that's not a good thing, is it?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_05: That's um but I guess there's only so many ways you can skin an E V Toll cat and make it successful.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_08: So that's got more than one metaphor in it.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_05: Before I use any more, let's move on.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_06: Let's move on to something that's a little bit more grounded, a little bit that we can get our heads around.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_06: And and that's your story, Dave.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, well, we've we had a press release in saying that uh the CEA has appointed uh the A Aircraft Owners of Pilots Association, AOPA, to deliver their infringement courses.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_05: That's AOPA in the UK, isn't it?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_08: That's AOP UK, that's right.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_08: It was sent out on the 1st of April, so we did worry worry for a while.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_08: Was it in April 4?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, it was, but it's in April 4.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_08: Kind of like uh that's poacher poacher turning Game Keeper, isn't it?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_05: It does seem a little bit odd because I mean so infringement courses have been run by Gasco.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_05: Gasco, move now, Gascon.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_08: Um that's what C at the CAA said.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_08: It used to be run by Gasco, but they've closed, so AOPA UK is going to take it over from this month, April.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_05: I I I find that a little bit odd.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_06: I mean it'd be interesting to see how they handle it, because there will be occasions where as an AOPA member, we'll try and one.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_06: You pick up the phone and go, uh I need a bit of help here, I'm being accused of infringing.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_06: They go, Well, we'll see you at the course next week then.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_06: Or I mean clearly.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_05: There's potential for blurring.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_05: There's potential for some blurred lines.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_08: It's uh do you know what the course is?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_08: It's a half-day course uh designed, this is the quote, designed to support a pilot in learning how and why the infringement happened and highlighting the skills and training required to prevent recurrent reoccurrence.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_06: I mean as as a As a concept.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_06: As a concept, I'm absolutely fine with continued training for people and even continue training back to the basics and stuff.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_06: We ought to be getting these things right.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_06: There's no reason that we shouldn't be getting things right.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, there are reasons that things happen, clearly.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_06: So, you know, there's a lot of people who push back against it perhaps for the wrong reasons.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_06: It's not that that I have an idea.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_05: When I went to this la last regional Gasco safety evening, the um the the the chap who presented it was talking about the fact that when you become an if an aeroplane infringes, when it's for the time when it's unidentified and not talking to anyone, you go, ah, it's just a dot moving through some airspace.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_05: But actually it's got a big bubble round it.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_05: It's i i they give it an enormous bubble.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_05: I think I want to say it's like five nautical mileage.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe even a little bit.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_05: But it's yeah, basically this aeroplane becomes this giant sphere flying through space, and they they can't until they establish contact with it, they have to treat it as this entirely random thing.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_05: And and that is a hazard.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I the the guy did say that one of the best things you can do is if you think you've infringed, you know, go to and go go and talk to D D on 1215 or something.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_05: At least establish contact or you know, or if you uh identify the freak that you might talk to.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_05: But because that will straight away that brings the bubble down a lot into a known thing.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_05: But yeah, no, I interesting stuff.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_06: But yeah, no, that's another inter just as an aside here, yeah.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_06: There's another interesting infringement story running on another forum at the moment, which is and that's been going on for quite a while.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_06: That's going to be interesting to see the outcome of that, and we look forward to following that closely.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_06: Is that that's that's I forget what the the Basically there was the it was a chap who's been accused of an infringement who's kind of said, Well, hang on a second, here's my GPS track.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_06: Here's the here's here's the local radar, I'm not infringing at all.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_06: I I do happen to be 30 meters from it, which is which is not uh very much, should we say?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_06: Certainly not, but I did not infringe.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_06: No.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_06: And and the c according to the story so far, the CA is saying, Well, we're using this radar that was something 120 miles away, and that puts you inside.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_06: And they go, so we'll see and an accuracy level of centimetres or something, they say.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_06: I think there's gonna be some really interesting stuff come out of that.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_06: Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_06: So looking forward to that, the conclusion of that and see where it goes.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_08: We probably can't say any more about that at the moment because it's still ongoing.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I think it's ongoing, yeah.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_06: Can we put a link in the description to the guy's website?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_06: We could put a link.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, it's Euro GA.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_06: Go and have a look.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, the the guy who runs EuroGA, his is he he like always makes little sny comments about Flyer saying, they're all the CA and nuts in disguise.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_06: We're not frickin' CA and nuts in disguise.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know where you get that from.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_06: Uh huh.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_06: But anyway, that's the story.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_06: But go read it on EuroGA.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_06: It's a fascinating thread.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_05: Have you got some calming spray for Ian?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_05: Just leap it.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_06: When people become I mean, there's a whole history of that stuff, and and he just he's just paranoid about it, I think, to be honest.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_06: But the there is a the there's a website for the guy who is being He's created his own website as well, yeah.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_06: So we can put a link.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I can put I can put a link to the thread in UAG.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_06: I don't have a problem with that.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_06: No.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_06: For for whatever reasons people think we do, but we don't.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_06: And and there's this guy has created his own website to explain that and other things as well.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_06: So it's it's the science behind it.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_06: It's a really, you know, this is kind of like the CA of I might be making a couple of assumptions here.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_06: But the CA have gone down the route.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_06: They normally go down and and stumbled across someone who's who's been very analytical and very specific about it and very tenacious about it.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_08: And he's also been very careful in all his dealings with the CA by recording phone calls and keeping track track of everything.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_05: And I I one of the things I thought was interesting, where it's like um he requested his radar trace and they went, Oh, we can't supply that to you.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_05: It's a very complex format.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_05: And then when it arrives, it's just a regular JPEG.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, well, and I think also there's a whole bunch of stuff around that where he kind of seems to have established through going to the information commissioner that it's his his data.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_06: Because NATS in the past, according to the story, and we've only got that story to go by, said no, we can't possibly let you have that uh on advice of the CA.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_06: And you go, and the information you get, well, yeah, you have to do it.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_06: And they went, Oh, okay, here you go.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_06: So there's a whole load of other stuff.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_06: I always thought that was a bit weird.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna prosecute you potentially for this.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_06: Can I have the data?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_06: No.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_06: No.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, that's weird.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_06: But anyway, so that's uh an interesting thing.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_06: Interesting, wasn't that?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_06: Moving on.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_06: We kind of like got a bit of thread drift down there from the AO for handling the thing.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's it's probably one of the most it's uh it's certainly one of the things that most pilots fear, and it's and it's an often discussed thing.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_06: So it's definitely worth years ago we interviewed a guy called Patrick Key, who's the head of IARSA.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_07: Yes.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_06: And he used to be a pilot and he gave up flying in a long, long time ago before he was head of YARSA.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_06: Uh he gave up flying.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_06: He said partly because I was absolutely paranoid about getting it wrong and infringing and getting into trouble.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_06: And I I kind of, you know, my the thing I was doing for fun was bringing me fear and and concern.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_05: Um all pilots should be cautious, but we shouldn't fly in living in fear of stuff like that.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_06: No, it's not a good way of doing things.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_06: Right, next story is is down to me.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_06: This is one.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_06: Uh the the FAA have issued a request for some more information should you come across it.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_06: This comes from a service bulletin that Piper put out in March um following an inspection of the front attach spa on a left on the left-hand wing of a PA 28161.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_06: And this is um that is that is a proper crinkly spar, isn't it?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_06: That's it is a proper crinkly spar.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_05: I have some pictures here of of showing what looks like galvanic uh there's a steel plate, steel plate riveted to this aluminium spa there.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and the the the rivet heads are looking very powdery.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_05: I don't I don't well I think the whole thing looks about as wafer thin as a Kit Kat wrapper.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_06: It's got Kit Kat's in.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_06: It's always about Kit Kat, isn't it?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_06: Um but yeah, so the FAF said um okay, problem in the service bulletin, please send us some more information.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_06: We want to have a look at this.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_06: And it's not in an easy place to look at and inspect either.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_06: So there are various schemes where you can talk to Piper about creating a boroscope hole and stuff.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, not it's not just PA28, is it?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_05: No, it's not some other models.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_06: It's PA twenty eight, PA32s, uh so Cherky 60 type things, PA 34s, Seneca's, and PA44's seminoles.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_06: So those and they're all kind of um types that have been called out in I keep tapping this table.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_06: I do sorry.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_06: I do apologise.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_06: Um they're all types that have been called out in the service bulletin.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_06: Um so yeah, take a look at that.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_06: We'll put a link in the description.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_06: Um, but keep an eye on that, because that you know, the the FAF said when we get the information, we'll decide if there's any if it's it we need any further action or not.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_06: It may be that no action's required.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_08: Um but it may be Well it sounds like Piper has done the right thing by putting by identifying it in a service bulletin.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_08: But it just shows that the fact that all these aircraft are so old.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_08: If you imagine old cars, they need to be thoroughly checked because of you know for rust and other issues like that.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I think corrosion.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_05: Cherry Cherokee's what, like 60 plus years old now, isn't it?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, but I mean some of those, there was an accident a little while ago um that was that were not particularly old aircraft that had a fairly high time to it.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_06: And and you know, some of the earlier ones, if you read the FA document, were were aircraft that were basically uh operating in and around Florida.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_06: So in quite a salty, yeah, moisture-rich environment, as it were.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_06: And galvanic corrosion, as you know, is different, different kind of metals with some moisture, perhaps a current of some kind.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_06: One of the things acts as an anode, one's a cathode.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_06: And then all of a sudden corrosion.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_06: You had a bit of a problem.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_06: So anyway, there you go.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_06: Keep an eye out for that.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_06: Dave, you've got a little mini story coming up here?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_08: Yep, it's about Andrewsfield, uh, yeah, the airfield uh in in Essex that uh had a bit of a problem earlier this year.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_08: It closed for a while.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_08: Um we did we we made contact with one of the directors and verified what we'd learned, what we'd heard.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_08: Um and then we heard it reopened, and I re we've I talked to them again and verified that it was reopening, but no, not a great deal of detail available.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_08: But we just wanted to make it clear.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_08: We're trying I'm actually trying to get hold of one of the other directors, Carol Cooper, who's the the CFI, um, and uh just try and if establish exactly how things are at Andrewsfield.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_08: But it's a lovely little place.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_08: I mean I I'm twenty odd years ago, um I did my title conversion with Carol at uh Andrewsfield.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_08: Wow, yeah.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_08: I remember that.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_08: You were there, yeah.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I think I was.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, so I think that the the the end of that story is it's currently open.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_06: There's some still negotiations and stuff ongoing, and we don't know the details of those, and various people have said they're delicate.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_06: Um, and so watch this space, but if you want to go fly there, give them a call and fly in.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_06: That's it.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_06: That seems to be the story.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_06: Uh finally, finally, otherwise, I guess not much news because next week is Sun and Fun! Woohoo! Yeah.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_06: Uh so Sun and Fun, that's 14th to the 19th of April, just out of interest.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_06: If you want to go and buy a ticket, a single day ticket's gonna cost you 50 bucks.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_06: Wow.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_06: And a ticket for the whole week's gonna cost you 180 bucks, as you would imagine for America.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_06: It's celebrating red, white, and blue.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_06: Uh and it's all very patriotic and all sorts of stuff like that.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_06: There's they've got the F-22 Raptor display, a demonstration team, I think they call it.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_06: The big display going on all week.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_06: And a whole bunch of other stuff, no doubt.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_06: A whole bunch of other stuff, plus warnings to no fires.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_06: Every time I read it, you cannot run any fires, no not in the campsite, no open fires.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_06: We're afraid that Florida's gonna burn, so it's all very dry.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_06: It's surrounded by water.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_05: It'll be fine.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_06: You'd have to go that far down in the ground to find the water.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_06: Anyway, and then another big show.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_06: Aero Friedrichs Haven, which I personally prefer to Son of Von, in all honesty.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_05: I d I d we've said it said it before, so it's worth saying again.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_05: Probably one of the world's best shows.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_06: 22nd to the twenty fifth of April.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_06: And that one, just if you're interested, and you should be, uh thirty nine euros for a day ticket or uh seventy six euro for all four days.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_06: That's great, family.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_06: So seventy six euro is like And money money off if you're a fly club member.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely, money off your fry.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_06: It's just a brilliant show.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_06: If you haven't been, you have to go.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_05: That's all I've got for you.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_05: And we will see you there.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_05: Come and say hi.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_05: Come and say hi.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_05: Club news.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_05: Landing fees?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_05: Landing fees?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_05: Where can we land for free in the month of April, Dave?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_05: Beginning with B.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_06: Is there anywhere beginning with B, Dave?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_08: That would be uh with Barton, probably, wouldn't it?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_08: Manchester Barton.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_08: No.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_06: Because that begins with M, Manchester.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_08: Would that be Ballardos?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_06: Are you sure it's not Balladie?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_06: But uh yeah.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_06: I suppose you could have said Brookford.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_08: I could have said Broadford, except it's called Isle of Sky now.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_08: Isle of Sky Airfield.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_08: Okay.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_08: They're trying to reinvent it's owned by the operated by the Highland Council, um, and they call it uh Isle of Sky Airfield now.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it sounds like I've not been there.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_05: Sounds like a great place to go in your logbook, though.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely, yeah.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_06: It's quite it's it's we need to do we need to do it's pretty remote.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_06: David Eats are gonna send me a message and go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_08: And the other one, of course, is is Audley End.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_06: Yep.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_06: Yep, absolutely.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_06: Great place.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_06: Um so don't forget those.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_06: Plus, if you're a member, you get full access to every single piece of content that we produce.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_06: You get full access to the forums, plus you get all the other benefits like land defeats and stuff like that.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_06: Plus, special events, and one of which is a visit to the Glider Heritage Museum at Lasham.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_07: Yes, yes, yep.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_06: That's coming up.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_06: I think the booking deadline for that is coming up soon.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_06: So check the forum for all the details that you want in there, and make sure you get your place booked for that.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_06: Um, webinars, we've got one coming up with Nigel Webb.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_06: Don't think the date's been tied down just yet, despite my heavy hints to Annabelle about the date being tied down.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_06: Annabelle, um, so if you could tie that down soon, Annabelle, that'd be great.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_06: Um yeah, so there you go.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_06: And it costs just six pounds per month.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_06: Flyer.co.uk forward slash membership.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_08: What's Night All's webinar going to be about?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_06: Flying in the Channel Islands, flying in and around the Channel Islands.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_06: Fantastic destination.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_06: And as we established last week, fuel's cheaper there than it is in some places in America.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_06: Plus you got plus you can claim drawback on the fuel that you export in your tanks when you fly there.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_06: Don't be tempted, like some people have been over the years, to just put min fuel in so you arrive with as much space in the tanks to put the cheap fuel in.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_06: Because that's gone wrong for a couple of people in the past.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_06: Genuinely, that's not a that's not a cost saving when that's.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_08: Never been there, actually.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_06: Really?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_08: No.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_08: Oh wow.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_08: Yep.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_08: So don't worry about it.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_06: I can tell you what each one's about and its little individual character, but I get in so much trouble from all of them because there's a little bit of competitive stuff going on there.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, is it?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_06: Well worth a visit.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_05: Well worth a visit.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um, do you have a favorite Channel Island?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_05: Tell us in the comments.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_05: So uh at the top of the show, Ian said uh we would be looking at the greatest aeroplanes of NASA.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and this is partly because we were all enthralled by the fact that uh NASA's been running their Artemis 2 mission.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_05: Clearly, Artemis is a rocket, but NASA's had some great aeroplanes in its time, hasn't it?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_05: So it felt like a good rocket.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_05: I guess so, yeah.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, yeah.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, just no wings.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_05: But that's okay.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_05: So um so yeah.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_05: So that made that had us delving into the history of NASA aeroplanes.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_06: And as we record this, it's worth saying that Artemis II is on its way back.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_05: So uh let's hope for a successful conclusion of that mission.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_05: It's been fantastic so far.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_05: So NASA's greatest airplanes.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_06: Who's going first then?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_05: Well, shall I go first?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_05: Go on then.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_05: Go on then, yes.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, right.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, so my choice, I think, arguably the most important flight since the bicycle mechanics from Ohio went flying at Kittyhawk in 1903.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_05: And that was the Bell X-1.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_05: It's the first of all the X-planes.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and this is when NASA was previously NACA, NACA, but that's the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, they were established in 1915 to promote aeronautical research.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_05: So the X-1, 30 feet long, uh, 10 feet high, 28 feet from wingtip to razor-edged wingtip.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and it was a byhanger.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_05: It was exactly, yeah.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_05: And it was inspired by uh the 50 caliber bullet.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_05: It was a joint project of NACA and the U.S.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_05: Army Air Force, um, and the X-1, it was powered by a Reaction Motors XLR11.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_05: Uh that's a really good Jerry Anderson's same same thing, isn't it?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_05: But it was the first liquid propellant rocket.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and it was What was the date?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_05: Uh 19 uh forty-seven.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_05: 1946, maybe even.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_05: Uh the the record flight.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_05: The the sound barrier record flight happened in 47.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_05: Weren't there like liquid weren't the Germans doing liquid rockets before that?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_05: Aaron Ross Powell, uh probably, yes.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um but it was the first uh oh first liquid propellant rocket, checking my notes, developed in the United States.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_05: In aircraft.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_05: Thanks to some German scientists that were nicked after the war.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_05: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_05: Plus it was um it was in an interesting engine because while it wasn't throttlable, it was six thousand pounds of thrust, uh four chambers, fifteen hundred pounds of thrust each, and you could you had some essential throttle control by turning on different you could have incremental use of the chambers.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_05: So it's like I'll have fifteen hundred or three thousand or four and a half thousand pounds of thrust or six thousand.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, okay.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_05: So uh but it was controllable rather than push-go and shriek.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_05: You had like four power settings.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_05: Four power settings.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um the X1 was Max Rental.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_05: Max Rental.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_05: Um it was air launched from the belly of a B-29 over Rogers uh dry lake in Southern California.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_05: And uh Chuck Nieager famously took the X1 on October 14th, 1947, beyond the speed of sound in-level flight, critically, uh, because there's some talk of you know, some people maybe having exceeded the sound barrier in a dive.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_05: Uh but anyway, it reached Mac 1.0 uh 1.06 at an altitude of 43,000 feet.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_05: And it was a big deal at the time because there was a lot of lots of people didn't really understand things that were going on, and there was odd things like control reversal and uh the um the X1 had a um not only did it have an elevator but it had a um a variable pitch stabilator as well.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_05: And there's some talk about the fact that that lots of these innovations came from the British because the m um obviously Miles had a uh the M, I think it was the M52, which looks an awful lot like the X1.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_06: Basically it was a ripoff of the British design put together by German engineers, German rocket engineers.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, Bell were there and they created the X1.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_05: And I think it it's it's it's I think when people think of NASA things, yeah, I think probably the X1 figures quite large in that.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_05: It flew 77 times after that, after before being being retired.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um Jaeger took it to 957 miles an hour or Mach 1.45 in 1948.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_05: So um and of course, famously, X1 and Jaeger would be immortalised in the film The Right Stuff, which is kind of like the definitive NASA X Plane hero time thing.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_05: Top Git Maverick, Tom Cruise went to Mac 10.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but I don't think that I'm guessing that didn't really happen, even though it was Tom Cruise.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_05: I know Tom Cruise does all his own stuff, but I don't that I think that may have not been real.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_05: I mean it's not it's not a bad one.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_06: It's not a bad one, but I don't I don't know.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_06: I'm trying to do that.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_06: Have you got a better one?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, clearly.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_06: I think it I think seeing an airplane that I I don't know.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_06: It's a very, very mini-use.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_06: I'm I'm gonna talk against argue against myself at the moment, so I'm gonna shut up and move on.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_06: Now, it would be really easy.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_06: If you go through the list of NASA airplanes, you can see that basically NASA should really stand for massive injection of testosterone, because that's what most of their aircraft are like.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_06: So could have chosen the SR-71, there's several variants.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_06: Best aircraft in the world ever, full stop, indisputable, not gonna entertain any discussion about that.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_06: But I didn't choose the SR-71 because it was too much of an option.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_05: And we we kind of SR70, there's been a few airplanes that we sometimes rule out, don't we?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_05: Because they're like favourite choices, shuttles, SR-71, DH88 comets, sometimes.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_06: Um so I've ruled out the SR-71 because of that.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_06: I've also ruled out the Phantom because of that, even though the Phantom of its era is probably one of the most iconic, mainly because I built a lot built a lot of air fixed models.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_06: But it's phantom, who doesn't love a phantom?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_06: So I've ruled out that as well.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_06: And I've even ruled about some of their ugly airplanes, like the constellation that they had as well.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_06: So that's gone.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_06: I chose something that's like super, super important.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um and that you're you're bigging yourself up to an enormous mic drop moment.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_05: This is the lunar landing.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_06: Didn't it try to kill Neil Armstrong?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_06: Well, funny enough, there were kind of yes.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_06: There were only um there were basically two versions of it.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_06: There's the LLRV, the research vehicle.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_06: Like the deadly one.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_06: Well, no, no, there was the L L L R V research vehicle.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_06: Well, we need to figure out how we're gonna do this landing stuff.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_06: And then there was the LLTV training vehicle.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_06: Which it kind of that's what it moved morphed into, and it it its role was training astronauts to land on the moon.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_06: Because I don't know if you know, you being edge, you probably do know.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_06: But every moon landing was basically flown manually.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_06: Due to the kind of it wasn't like it wasn't like it's not like you press a button on your drone and it goes returns home.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I know.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_05: With cal with computers that weren't as powerful as calculators, I think asking it to do a l asking anything to automate a mute moon landing was gonna be a challenge, wasn't it?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_06: So absolutely.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_06: Now it's you you were talking about the the the the airplane that tried to kill Neil Neil Arms.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_06: That that's true.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_06: There were actually two uh research vehicles built and three training vehicles were built.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_06: So a total fleet size of five.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna conflate them together, of which three kind of didn't make it.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_06: They tried to kill various people who were flying on.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_05: So how are we setting this up for this being your greatest ever NASA choice?
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_06: Because it was such an important.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, I'm pretty sure that you know, thanks thanks to various technology and stuff like that, landing now is gonna be significantly easier than it was back then.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_06: But it this was just such an important step.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_06: Without that step, that that would not have opened up the gateway to space that we are now beginning slowly to see after so many years of not seeing it.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_05: And I guess and at the time, uh flying it's a bit like when people talk about the the early generation Harrier.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_05: Actually flying those things back in the 60s where there's there wasn't a lot of computing power, and it was all done on slide rules and things.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_05: Done on slide rules and pulse jets of air and it's like.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, in the in the in the case.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_06: So I mean the the control system on it was pretty interesting because effectively it had like one massive jet mounted.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, underneath underneath it, and that which is pretty much the vertical jet.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_05: So clearly that must be like riding a plate on top of a pin or something.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and there were two modes in that.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_06: There was the kind of what they called the sim mode and the standard mode.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_06: The standard mode, the jet's fixed.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_06: SIM mode, it gimbals, and it's its its point is it it you throttle it back to five-sixths of its power required, and that effectively simulates uh the reduced gravity on the moon.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_06: So you've got and then there were two hydrogen peroxide rockets.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, because I love a hydrogen peroxide rocket.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_06: Because everyone loves a hydrogen peroxide rocket, which kind of controlled the rate of descent, because basically the five-sixth power from the jet engine just stayed there permanently.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_06: Um, that controls the rate of descent and various other bits of transport.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_06: And then there were 16 hydrogen peroxide thrusters that enable kind of your and and all the rest of the stuff to kind of get it.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_06: And so you can imagine all this stuff going on.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_06: I have to say, and I It's pretty funky.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_06: I think I had a time of like 10 minutes endurance or something.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'm guessing this is not the kind of thing that you fly to Popham for lunch, is it?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_06: Well So funny enough, the maximum speed is 35 knots.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_06: Not that fast.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_06: But you know, the line the lunar lander didn't go that fast, really.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_06: Endurance, 10 minutes.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_06: Service ceiling, six thousand feet.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_06: I know yeah, I don't think any I don't think anyone got to six thousand feet.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_06: No, that's a long way to find out.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_06: But this was also because because it had such a tiny flight envelope, it was one of the first zero zero seats.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_05: And so a zero zero ejection seat.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_06: Yes, which Neil Armstrong and and two other people used to use.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_06: And basically you got 14G for half a second and it took you up to 250 feet after which parachute opened, and you just hope that it didn't land you in the middle of a burning lunar landing training vehicle which was underneath.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_06: But it was pretty So while it sounds deadly, it didn't actually kill anybody.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_05: It didn't actually kill anybody.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_06: I mean 60% fleet loss due to accidents.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I'm guessing.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_06: Interesting, one of the accidents, because they were trying they were trying to make this a simulator.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_06: So they took a styrofoam cockpit enclosure to kind of mimic the limited view that they would get from the Luly Landing module.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_06: And then they they discovered as they were kind of expanding the envelope and going, well, you get to a point where the styrofoam module was having aerodynamic effects that were greater than the thrust, the little thrust puffers.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_06: The hydrogen peroxide 16 hydrogen peroxide thrusters could counter counteract.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_06: And it would then uh that it would all start going wrong.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I love the fact get out.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I love the fact that you've just I I didn't realise that they they that that this used styrofoam, and you go, well, actually, you know, there are kids who make make their own lunar landers, and you go, Well, actually, it's not far to go from a kid's lunar lander to NASA's own.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_06: So I think all in all, from I mean, interesting, the last one flew in 1972.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_06: Uh that was Gene Cernan who was training it to be uh for when he commanded Apollo 17, which was the last aircraft.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_06: So he he flew the last lunar landing training vehicle, and then the last one.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_05: Do you think NASA had a board up in the flight test hangar going days since last lunar landing training vehicle crash?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know, but there was this kind of thing.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_06: So before you got to fly that, you they started you off on helicopters.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_06: So you go and you get used to flying slowly.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_05: But maybe up the risk by going you can have a helicopter with all the bolts removed or something.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_06: But this obviously the astronaut core was was much bigger than the people who actually got selected to go on the cruise.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_06: So those people who kind of you go, hang on a minute, why why are those people getting helicopter training and I'm not?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_06: And basically they that was the point where you realized like the Lunar Lander simulator.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, um I think I think um Leon Armstrong flew it something like I want to say 50 odd times, something like that.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_06: It was quite a few times, and he he was he was really positive about it.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_06: And when he landed you know on the moon the first time, you go, actually, it felt just like the lunar lunar landing training vehicle.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he flew it a lot.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_05: And I I remember listening to um uh uh Mike Collins' uh talk at Oshkosh and uh Mike talking about the fact that um you know he he he came into work the day that Neil had crashed, had ejected from the uh Lunar Lander training vehicle.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_05: And Neil was working away at the desk and he's like, Morning, Neil, and he's like morning.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_05: And it's like someone said, Hey, do you know Neil crashed the so-and-so early?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_05: And that's like that was like classic Neil.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_06: It's like, oh yeah, no, it's like move on.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_06: Well the other I mean the other thing, just the last thing I want to mention about this fantastic thing about the programme.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_06: Fantastic, wrong word.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_06: Um money was short.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_06: So let's make it the cheapest possible way.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_06: Let's not bother to put this in the wind tunnel.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_06: We'll just kind of work it out and expand the envelope gradually like that.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_06: And it was the last one they went, no, we need to put this in the wind tunnel.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_06: So they stuck it into the super guppy and flew it up to a big wind tunnel, put it in there.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_06: They went, we can't do this accurately because it doesn't really work by firing the engine while it's in the wind tunnel at the same time.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_06: It melts the floor or whatever.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it was only the one they went, ah, that's the styrofoam stuff causing all the problems.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_06: Um but I thought they'd go, let's not bother with the wind tunnel, let's just expand it gradually.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_08: But surely the moon is uh it does no atmosphere on the moon.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_08: So it didn't work.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_06: Well no, there it wasn't, they weren't worried about the moon.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_06: They were worried about all the people crashing it.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, indeed, on Earth.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_06: On Earth.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_07: Okay.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, they could have had a styrofoam.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know why they bothered with the with the actual lunar landing module.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_06: They could have made it out of styrofoam, really.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_06: We might have had might have struggled on re-entry.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_07: Yes.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, it didn't re-enter, did it?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_05: Sorry.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_05: No, no.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_05: I mean you talked about styrofoam.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_05: I mean the the actual Lunar Lander was like in in some spots was like it was just foil, it was like paper thin, wasn't it?
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_05: So that's right to be absolutely as light as possible.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_05: So um fan fascinating.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_05: There you go.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_05: That's my that's my So your utterly lethal Lunar Lander training vehicle, my brilliant X1, Dave.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_08: Well, I've kind of misunderstood the brief a little bit.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_05: Dave told me you come for a luscov.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_05: Dave in misunderstanding brief shocker.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_08: I thought it was all about aircraft that were linked to NASA.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_08: Anyway, I've chosen I've have actually selected uh an aircraft that was uh the favourite of arguably NASA's greatest ever pilot.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_08: Neil Armstrong?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_08: No, Robert Hoot Gibson, of course.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_08: You know, he was he's such a natural pilot.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_08: You know, he's a Navy pilot, former top gun graduate, flew five space shuttle missions.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_08: Passionate pilot.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_08: He liked to say he likes to f he likes to fly everything.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_08: Um have you picked the shuttle?
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_08: No, I haven't picked the shuttle because you wouldn't allow me to pick the shuttle.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_08: I I I read that uh Hoop Gibson's is asked what's his favourite aeroplane?
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_08: And he said, My own airplane.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_08: It's a hoop modified casut.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_08: It's a racer.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, single seat yeah.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_08: Single seat racer.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_08: He set two perforward performance records and said it's a really fun thing to fly.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_08: He flew it up to an unofficial world record altitude for the class of aircraft, 27,000 feet.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_06: Um that's gotta be nippy, isn't it?
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_08: It's gotta be nippy, but it's gonna be cold.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_08: Nothing to an astronaut, no, I guess not.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_05: Do you think he's wearing a spacesuit?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_05: That would be that would be tough in a cassette, wouldn't it?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_08: It probably got a ball of clave on it.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_08: I guess I could be as well.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, might have it astronaut nappy.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_08: Anyway, Hoot uh retired from NASA in 1996 and became a keen air racer, competing regularly at the Reno, now Roswell air races.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_08: In the Cassut and other aircraft.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_06: I think we saw him from a distance, didn't we?
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_06: At Reno.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_06: Maybe.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_05: I I I I can't remember.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_05: I think so.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_05: I think he was he was wandering around the um Unlimited when we went in 2014, was it?
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_05: Something like that.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_05: I try to remember.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_05: But um Yeah.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_08: Okay.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_05: So your yeah, your was a bit left of the lights.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_08: Left of the lights.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_08: He just one little little story about uh that who he was involved in a mid-air collision at an air show in Texas, uh flying the Cassut.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_08: Um and uh he didn't see the other aircraft, well, which probably why there was a mid-air collision.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_08: He didn't see it.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_08: Um but he he he he noticed that the aircraft wasn't flying properly and there was a bit of funny noise.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_08: He thought the engine was about to go, so he switched the engine off and made a glide landing.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_08: Right.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_08: Uh landed okay, even though the end of the wing was ripped to shreds by the propeller of the other aircraft.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_08: Unfortunately, the other aircraft just uh it broke up and uh the pilot was killed.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_05: So I on to I Dave's left at the light choice of aeroplane flown by someone who worked at NASA.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_05: I am reminded though that there have been a bunch of NASA astronauts who have flown, who have gone on and and had, you know, they've they've been active pilots.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_05: Uh probably most famously, John Glenn.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_05: Uh NASA's first astronaut.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_05: He owned and piloted uh Beach Baron uh 58P.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_05: He owned that for three decades, purchased it new in 1981, and flew that up until age ninety.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_05: So I don't blame you.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_08: Beach Baron is a lovely airport.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_08: Well, we flew down to Friedrichshaw from that time.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_08: It's great.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_08: It was just superb.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_06: Eugene certainly had a Cessna 41, I mean.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you you said.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Frank Borman, uh, who was Apollo 8, um, he was um uh regularly uh flew war birds.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um Bill Anders, um obvious uh uh uh also Apollo 8 flew warbirds.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um Neil Armstrong didn't he do the Thunderbirds I don't think so.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_05: I mean like the puppets.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_05: The puppets.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, no.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, no.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_05: No, I'm not sure they did.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Neil Armstrong famously soloed a champ before he was an ASAR astronaut, and uh even after landing on the moon, was a very active glider pilot.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_06: And I loved I love the I love the champ, but I'm not sure it would make the highlight of Neil Armstrong's career.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_05: Probably not.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_05: Well, yeah, but he was he was very he he he liked aeroplanes for different reasons.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_05: He was a classic aeronautical engineer.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um uh apparently Jack Swiggart, Apollo 13, um, active aviator, Roger Chaffee, um, Apollo 1 uh was uh uh did some barnstorming in a Waco 10.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and Jim Lovell as well, apparently um uh was a private flyer, I'd say.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_05: And obviously current boss of NASA, Jared Isaacman, has got you know, he's got a whole fleet of jets, hasn't he?
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_05: Not an astronaut, but um or actually is an astronaut.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_05: Alpha jets, you mean?
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, no.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_05: Jared Isaacman famously came to Oshkosh.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_05: He's got um he's got a MiG-29.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um four L thirty nine albatross and three Alpha Jets.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_05: And I say not I think he did he he went to did he go to.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_05: Oh well I I he made his money.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_05: He's a billionaire from other activities, not being the boss of NASA.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_05: So but he's um I mean he seems like a cool dude to have in charge of NASA.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_05: So and he's um if you're going to Oshikosh this year, he's like, um we're taking lots of NASA airplanes to Oshkosh.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_05: Cool.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_05: So out of our three choices, um, do you have a favorite viewers?
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_05: And maybe you're going, but what about other things?
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_05: Because I mean let's not forget that in the NASA Arsenal, there were things like the X15, Mac 6 Plus, XB 70, Valkyrie, Enormous, and Mac 3, the Doke VZ4.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_05: You're like, what the hell is the Doke VZ4?
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_05: What is the Doke VZ4?
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_05: Well, imagine two big Dyson fans on the end of a on the end of a stubby wing on a sh on a long on a like a long time.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_05: I doubt I could afford it if it was Dyson.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_05: It was a budget exceed budget.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_05: That was that was V That was a VTOL.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um and famously the M2F2 lifting body, you'll go you're going, I have no idea what that is.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_05: But if you ever watch the six million dollar man, at the in the opening credits of that TV series, this little lifting body, there's a it crashes and it's like the six million dollar man was rebuilt from Oh right.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_05: So but anyway, it was NASA's one of NASA's.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I know, yeah.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_05: But it was one of NASA's first lifting bodies, absolutely fascinating.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_05: And NASA had lots of GA aeroplanes too.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Twin Comanche, SR22, Rutin very easy, all making appearances.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_05: Do you have a favorite greatest NASA aeroplane?
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_05: Or maybe if you're Dave, NASA-related airplane.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_05: Or actually, an astronaut.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_06: Or an airport.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_06: And here's a quick question, going back to Dave's.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_06: I do I've always pronounced it cassett.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_06: I'm not sure I trust your pronunciation because you'll call it an all-star.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_06: And then Dave's called it.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_06: A cassot.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_06: How do you pronounce cassettes?
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I'm going for cassett.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_05: Casset, yes.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_06: There you go.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_06: Must be time for something else then.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_06: Is it?
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_06: Is it what caught your eye?
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_06: What caught your eye?
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_05: Fantastic.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I'm gonna go to uh day first.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_05: Excellent.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_08: Okay, well, I was looking through AFORS as you do.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_08: Yes.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_08: And I came across this absolutely stunning, gorgeous Pitts Model 12.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_08: Ooh.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_08: It's um a beautifully constructed Kip plane, built in the UK.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_08: Yes.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_08: Uh in 2017.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_08: It won the 2017 uh LAA.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_08: Was it the LA then or PFA?
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_08: No, it was LAA.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_05: It was L FAS like in about 1963, wasn't it?
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_05: Uh well 50 no, 80 years ago this year, PFA was founded.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, we we digressed.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_08: It won the uh Concourse Award at the LAA Rally.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, Concourse and best um it might have even been best planned bill.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_08: I don't know.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_08: I haven't got detail on that.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_08: But it it was it absolutely fantastically made.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_08: It's powered by nine-cylinder radial Venenev.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_05: Vedenyev.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_05: Vedenev.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_05: The M good old M14F.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_05: M14 PF.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_08: Overhaul, zero timed, and it shows four hundred and thirty-six horsepower on the dynamometer, apparently.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_08: Okay.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_05: And that is how much is this?
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_08: Well, uh it's lightly used, just 138 hours.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_08: Yes.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_08: 175,000 pounds.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_05: And I know some people might go, oh, that's expensive.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_05: But if you had if Aviat were to factory build you something like that, it would be three, four, maybe a hundred thousand pounds or more.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_05: More than that, even.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_05: And that is and that is that's that's a lot of craftsman's trip for not a lot of money.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_05: And a beautiful thing.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, absolutely.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_05: Not sure I'd like the fuel burn right now, but No, no, it did I think it was 56 litres now.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_06: You can always throttle back.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_06: Not 56 litres now.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_06: That's probably just an idol.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_08: That's what that's what they're claiming in the ad, anyway.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_08: Okay, marketing.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_06: Ian, what did you find?
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_06: I'd love to say that I found something that was brilliant and that was great in terms of like Dave's pits, and but no, I I I've been assaulted this last week by AI Slop.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_06: It's i it is an onslaught.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_06: It is an onslaught.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_06: The first thing that caught my eye was this little TikTok, um which Henry's gonna play.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_06: Uh have a look and see what you think.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know that in the United Kingdom there is a place where people don't drive cars out of their homes, but instead fly airplanes?
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: There exists a community so unique that its streets are actually runways.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of hearing car engines, you wake up each morning to the gentle hum of jet turbines.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: This place isn't for ordinary people.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: Every resident here holds a pilot's license, and most own their own aircraft, parked right inside their personal hangars.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: When you enter this area, you won't see welcome signs.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, you'll encounter security checkpoints, private patrols, and luxurious homes, all seamlessly connected by a network of private taxiways.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: Everything here operates like a parallel world.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: Weekend gatherings take place in exclusive pilot clubs, shopping happens in on-site service centers accessible only to residents, and even police and fire services are fully privatized, serving only this community.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: No billboards, no tourists, just the sound of propellers cutting through the air, and runway lights reflecting off multi-million dollar mansions.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to White Waltham Airfield.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_06: Just so unbelievably wrong and incorrect that even the the the lightest piece of research would tell you that.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_05: White Waltham as a Why why would you even make rubbish like this?
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_06: It's just unbelievable.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_06: Unbelievable.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_06: And then of course we had um there was a great one on on Facebook uh advertising the Crossword Air Day, I think, from from Kemple, and there was this picture of a of like a propeller-powered red arrow.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_06: Red arrow gnat of some kind.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, gnat hawk thing.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_05: Where the hell did that come from?
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_05: I did I AI seems to be the tool of choice now for making advertising posters for anything, let alone an aviation event.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_05: But do people not do checks?
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_05: They get you know, have people forgotten what aeroplanes actually look like?
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_06: And we're talking of which, there are two others that have that have been done by people who I mean Cotswold should know better, but these are two brothers who should know better even better.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_06: There was the there was the one from Air Britain who spend their life, you know, Air Britain are like creating legendary books of all sorts of detail that you probably read most nights.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, and uh and they're like curators of accuracy, and then and and then we get this.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_05: This is a Comanche with no wing.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_05: That someone Yeah, it's got no wing, and someone's plugged in a I d that might not be Air Britain.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_05: That might be because that's this is this was an ad for private flyer, wasn't it?
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_05: So some yeah.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_06: Well anyway, so they yeah, they've done an ad for private flyer saying there, but anyway, someone's taken a Comanche, blown it up to make it look plump cartoon-like.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_06: Cartoon-like.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_06: Oh unbelievable.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_06: And then worst of all this might be my favourite.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_05: EAA No, it wasn't EAA.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_05: It wasn't.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_05: No, it was it was the Centre of Aviation Photography who were organizing a trip.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_05: It's even worse.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_05: A trip to Oshkosh.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_05: You go, they must have loads of great photos of this, yet they came up with this, and this was um it's like there's so there's so much wrong in there, my head is going to explode.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_06: It's like you could run a competition, look at this picture and and list everything that's wrong and try and find something that's right.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_06: Well, yeah.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe the spelling of EAA.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_05: That's about it.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_05: But that was just like oh my god.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_05: And I just I just don't I I don't get why I i AI generated rubbish just seems to be consuming the internet more and more and more.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_05: But I don't understand why people don't push back and go, you know, when you ask AI to generate you this stuff, why do people go, yeah, that's a great poster?
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I'll run that.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_06: There's no filter.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_06: And I guess it's because, you know, people who are cleverer than me run get AI agents to create it automatically and post it automatically, but don't have any they're cleverer than me in in creating AI agents, but not in being able to look at something and go, that is rubbish.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_05: And I have to say, uh that those are those are three quite bad examples.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_05: I know you you White Waltham video just absurd.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_05: I just don't even get why.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_05: I know how would why would someone think that was a great thing to come up with?
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_05: I'll make a uh But and the other two just I if I try and get AI to do anything, and I I've seen some people have quite good success with AI image generation.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_05: If I get the th to do it, it's like I just I just end up with nonsense.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_05: So maybe it's the way I talk to AI.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe it is.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe it is.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, that's that what that's what caught my eye, and it wasn't a good thing.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_05: If you've seen some terrible AI, send it to Ian, he loves it.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, absolutely.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_05: Which just leaves me.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_05: And um I came across this.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it's AO it's uh uh Dave Hirschman from AOPA, and he's flown from AOP US, no less.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_05: And he's flown the Spirit SE one.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_08: Wow.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and it's the review I've been waiting for because Dave likes Van's RVs.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_05: We chat about them.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_05: And hey Dave.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_05: Hey Dave.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_05: Talk to me about so-and-so.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_05: Let's talk about RVs again.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_05: We haven't done that for like three days now.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_05: But it's but it's like you you you go, okay, you fly that, I fly that.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_05: So you've got it's yeah, we've got some it's like I know if you're talking about something, it's you've got a frame of reference.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_05: And uh he's been the trusted source I've been waiting for to fly the SE1.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and basically he's gone, I love it.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_05: It's great handling, no slop, tight and responsive, just like an R V3.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm in for that.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, we're on the wheels, tracking.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_03: 45 off the ground at 48 indicated.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um he doesn't like it's got heel brakes and he's not a big fan.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, why couldn't there have been tow brakes?
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_05: But otherwise, Dave's like, this is a brilliant aeroplane.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, it's unique because it's like it breaks so many of the current rules.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_05: It's like no rotax, um, it's single seat folding wing.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_05: But and they're doing he it's it's he's talking about the fact that uh loves you know, it's got the trousered gear.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_05: Who doesn't love a trousered undercarriage?
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um but uh yeah, he's it's basically saying this is this is a great machine.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_05: Uh talks about the fact they've got 70, 70 uh customer orders.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm Spirit, I think uh I think they Spirit probably knew it was going to be popular, but I think even they're probably blown away by just how popular it's been.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_05: Are we gonna get any over here?
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, more on that coming.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um Dave mentioned the truism of don't put a new engine on a new airframe, but he said this this in this airplane, none of that seems wrong.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um and he said everything seems right with it.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_05: So it's I think if you were waiting for uh an endorsement of of how good the SE1 might be, I think Dave's got it.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_05: Definitely watch the video, we'll put a link in the description.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um so on that engine front, Spirit have got a V2 engine running in a test cell at the moment, and that's I know everyone's like, ooh, new engine.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_05: Uh but they're doing TBO testing and running that, um, doing lots of continuous running for that.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um when I last saw a video of that back in February, they were up to a TBO of 827 hours, which you might go, well, it's a small number, but don't forget RoTax started out at TBO of 600 hours.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_05: So um and as Dave said, watch for spirits heading to owners all around the world.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_05: Here in the UK, um LAA, that's the Light Aircraft Association, our own CAA and Spirit are working together on future approval.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_05: So I I think and there's a good sized group of people who are waiting to hand over deposit money.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_05: So um I I think sometime in the future.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_05: Are you one of them?
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_05: I yeah, I'm I'm not gonna say no.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_05: I'm I'm definitely one of those people.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_05: So um I can't wait.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_05: I think it looks fantastic.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_05: Has has there been I I don't recall seeing a picture with a canopy on the there's a there's been there's a Facebook group, unofficial Facebook group for it where people have sp been in the factory and they've seen the bubble.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, special special interest group.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um but uh yeah, there is a canopy in development.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um I need it will be interesting to see how that turns out because the aeroplane as it is has a really great look.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_05: And you go, it's difficult to to make a bubble, you know, to to come along and go, well it needs a bubble, how are we gonna do that?
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_05: But hey, we'll see how it turns out.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_05: But um yeah, exciting times.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_05: I mean I'm I'm still I still I think there are people even going, Oh, are they gonna go back to Oshkosh this year?
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I'm pretty sure they'd be mad not to.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_05: Uh they're definitely going to Sun and Fun.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_05: So So yeah, so so yeah, Spirit SE one, check that review out.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_05: Dave.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_08: Yes, events.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_08: Well, it's a surprisingly quiet weekend this way coming up.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_08: Uh looking ahead to the following weekend, Saturday the 18th of April, there's Pilot Careers Live at uh the Sofitel, London Heathrow.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_06: Be there or be square.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_08: There's uh also on the Saturday, there's the Cornell pasty flying.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_08: Pasty.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_08: Pasty.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_08: Pasty.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_08: Pasty.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_05: In the history of Dave mispronunciations.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_05: Hello, I'd like a Cornish pasty.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_08: A corn So it's the Cornell pasty flying at Bobbing.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_05: At the time that Dave came to the office, he looked a bit pasty.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_08: Saturday and Sunday, 18th and 19th of April, there's uh air race school at Bobham.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_05: That sounds good if you want to get interior racing, and I think that's free of charge, isn't it?
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_08: It is.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_08: You do need to uh register with it before you go, yeah.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_06: Fantastic.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_06: Great.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_06: And that case, thank you very much, team.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you very much for watching.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you very much, Henry, in the background.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_06: Um, good luck to the Artemis people on their way back.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you very much for watching.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_06: Don't forget to join the flyer club, flyer.co.uk forward slash membership.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_06: Six quid a month bargain, and have a good one.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_06: See you soon.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_06: Bye.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_06: Bye.
• 58:40
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• 58:57
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