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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZRKm6PG918

I had to post this...I thought it was pretty darn impressive and elegant. It truly looked like a albatross or something.

They fly a lot better with no passengers and a much-reduced fuel load.

Should have rolled it like the Dash 80 back in 1955.

Wow, that thing can fly like a crop duster. The pilot really knew how to make it dance. Of course, I agree, with no passengers and low fuel, it's gotta be much easier.

They got in trouble for flying a bit too flamboyantly with their quarter-of-a-billion-dollar aircraft in front of the spectators at Farnborough.

Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va5HGMlRSdQ

News story here:
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/boeing/20 ... -air-show/

Oh man, I would LOVE to be a passenger on that plane when it did those maneuvers.

After Habsheim http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296 there are no passengers on air show aircraft. It's far more fun anyway to be in a light aircraft and for aerobatics, you get to pull more G

I'm in complete agreement on Boeing getting in to trouble with that display, that bank was applied too low and there was a significant risk of a wing tip impact. The roll centre is the fuselage, not the wing tip.

For spectacular large aircraft take off, my favourite is the Vulcan, especially the big wing-over http://youtu.be/X98ZnZs-2ds
The Vulcan is a big 4 engined cold war nuclear bomber capable of carrying 21000lbs of conventional bombs. With no bombs and only a splash of fuel in the tanks then it goes up like an angel returning home. With the low clouds that day they needed to stop climbing quickly to keep under the cloud base. Pushing forwards on the stick would have resulted in a negative-G manoeuvre that the aircraft was not designed for, whilst a wing-over is a positive-G manoeuvre throughout so whilst it looks spectacular (especially when flown by something as big as a Vulcan) then it is safe for the airframe.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

They got in trouble for flying a bit too flamboyantly with their quarter-of-a-billion-dollar aircraft in front of the spectators at Farnborough.

Still should have rolled it, followed by an Immelman. Both maneuvers can be executed at +1G constant with no additional stress to the airframe. Given the "Fat Albert" launch seen in both vids, she's certainly got enough thrust when flying light.

I've long suspected that modern airliners have flight qualities and capabilities that go far beyond what we see while cattle in the can.

With the 787-9 being made of mostly carbon fiber I would like to see other big airliners try what it can do with a equivalent fuel load I bet we would see some wing dragging.

I watched another video of the 787-9 taking off from a stop with only one engine. I am sure it was not fully loaded since it was from a dead stop and not a rolling engine failure halfway down the runway or just after liftoff when most flame outs and bird strikes happen.

It was impressive.

I also finally looked up what the exhaust on the tail of a 747 and other planes do. It is a small turbine powerplant to power the plane on the ground when the engines are not running.....also I am sure in flight it is a alternate power source in the redundancy system. It saves the airliners a lot of fuel costs when the planes are on the ground.

The new 747 is a beast and took off breaking its load record with 1,010,000 lb take off weight.

notfred wrote:

For spectacular large aircraft take off, my favourite is the Vulcan, especially the big wing-over: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X98ZnZs-2ds&t=00m30s
The Avro Vulcan is a big 4 engined cold war nuclear bomber.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that someone thought it was worth spending a pile of money to keep a 55-year-old retired bomber flying at airshows. They're still performing that maneuver with newer aircraft. Here's the 65-year-old chief test pilot in one of Airbus' A400M Atlas prototypes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHbxoejbkyU&t=27m10s

P.S.: It's also surprising, given that the planes fly the same show each day, that Airbus' TV camera crew missed the shot so frequently.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that someone thought it was worth spending a pile of money to keep a 55-year-old retired bomber flying at airshows. They're still performing that maneuver with newer aircraft.

Why do people willingly pump cubic dollars into keeping WWII warbirds restored and flying? Take off the engineer hat every once in a while and just revel in the sheer aesthetics of XH558 pulling a maximum takeoff or a flock of P-51Ds coming over the field for a low pass at 400MPH with their throttles pushed through the gate and their Merlins howling. There's art and beauty in both and there are times when that is all that is needed and damn the costs.

Not sure about you, but I completely understand why a young Christian Bale reacted as he did in "Empire of the Sun".

I was just thinking that it costs orders of magnitude more money to fly a Vulcan than a P-51. You don't see anyone flying a B-36 these days, but this Vulcan did perform at Farnborough this year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Vulcan_XH558

JustAnEngineer wrote:

I was just thinking that it costs orders of magnitude more money to fly a Vulcan than a P-51. You don't see anyone flying a B-36 these days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Vulcan_XH558

Yet many people are willing to pay that bill to allow others to see XH558 take to the sky once more. A pure utilitarian fail, but a big aesthetic win.

Oh, and the USAF made sure that there wouldn't be any airworthy B-36s after their trip to the Boneyard.

wow that looked like a feather floating in the air
first dreamliner vid I saw made me cringe how the wings just seem to flex but this one is a beaut

JustAnEngineer wrote:

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that someone thought it was worth spending a pile of money to keep a 55-year-old retired bomber flying at airshows.

The fact that it's 55 years old and doing maneuvers that newer aircraft show off is why it is worth it. What they are now designing with millions of dollars worth of computing power was being done with 10 cent slide rules back then. Sure the cost seems high but then you look at something like Jay Leno's garage of classic cars and the price tag on the Vulcan seems like a deal. They aren't the only ones flying around vintage jets. Take a look at the Snowbirds, those Tudors are extremely underpowered, well past their expected airframe life expectancy, the newest of the squadron hails from 48 years ago and we're never designed for acrobatics.

Personally I wish more older jet aircraft were kept in airworthy condition for air shows. It's one thing to read about the Concorde, Blackbird, F-14, Voodoo's, F5, F-104, etc, and another to experience them in flight in all their glory. They are a testament to engineering when designing an aircraft didn't take over a decade to get into the skies.

vargis14 wrote:

I also finally looked up what the exhaust on the tail of a 747 and other planes do. It is a small turbine powerplant to power the plane on the ground when the engines are not running.....also I am sure in flight it is a alternate power source in the redundancy system. It saves the airliners a lot of fuel costs when the planes are on the ground.

The new 747 is a beast and took off breaking its load record with 1,010,000 lb take off weight.

They also use material that change their shape depending on temperature for the engines to optimize airflow for cruising or takeoff/landing.

Totally agree on wishing there were more of the old jets still flying. It's near criminal that not only did they ground Concorde but they drained fluids so they couldn't be put back in to flying condition without basically rebuilding from scratch.

The Vulcan is a bit special, it's a big bomber but with the huge delta wing it flys like a fighter in terms of manoeuvrability. It actually has a fighter stick rather than a bomber control wheel. Also the noise is truly epic, featuring an intake howl at low airspeed and high power as well as literally ground shaking noise out the back. My father worked at British Aerospace at Filton in Bristol and there was also Rolls Royce on the airfield. The "family day" airshow had everything - all kinds of prototypes, Red Arrows, F-111s (both serviced there), trips in Concorde out to the Bay of Biscay to go supersonic; but the display by the Vulcan was always by far the most memorable. I remember it doing a Go Around at about 25 ft, shaking the ground and then just climbing up through the clouds. As it went through 10,000ft a BAE146QT took off in front of us, we couldn't hear it over the noise the Vulcan was still making.

notfred wrote:

It's far more fun anyway to be in a light aircraft and for aerobatics, you get to pull more G

Best thing I ever did was taking the chance to fly a small Pitt S-2A on an acrobatics session. Not only as a passenger, but actually having control. First the pilot showed me the maneuvers and we talked a bit, then I got to fly, not only predetermined maneuvers, but doing them pretty much as I wanted. That said, didn't pull more then 5.5G or so, but doing a double loop with double roll in one go is a big treat for any enthusiast. That said, after having flown flight sims to and fro for 20+ years, I was surprised how well it translated to flying for real. The instructor also said it is quite a clear difference since people not used to it sometimes have a hard time getting the controls and instruments. What you don't get is the G's of course. Wasn't a problem for me being relatively short and not that thin.

So anybody interested in it, go do something like that, it is AWESOME!

They're at it again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYbM-3E11Qo&t=00m20s

I guess doing that in Flight Simulator doesn't count. Can't be done when flying by keyboard (or at least I couldn't). But, give me a good multi-axis joystick, and disable aircraft over-stress detection, and all those maneuvers are quite fun.

When you're empty and on light fuel load you can do what Fat Albert once did back when there were still JATO bottles in stock.

Full passengers/cargo and full fuel? Not a chance.

EDIT: OMG, we're doing this again? FFS JaE, stop thinking in numbers 24/7 and try words every now and then. In numbers, that was a waste of fuel. In words, it was a bit of beauty from a class of plane no one ever expected to have some aerobatic chops.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

They're at it again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYbM-3E11Qo&t=00m20s

Another breathtaking video......I know they are not doing the maximum roll rate the plane can do. I would love to see one going all out equipped with a custom ejector seat and let some hotshot pilot go nuts and take the plane to its very upper limits of everything even if he reaches the breaking point of the plane.

Also It would be kinda cool to see Boeing and airbus or any 2 airliners face off in a dogfight. Imagine a Airliner Dogfight with some badazz 20 or 30mm paintball guns suitable for a dogfight..now I am just thinking silly

You've got to be careful you don't end up like the B-52 crash if you pull radical manoeuvres in an airframe not designed for them.

This latest Boeing video looks good though, it's careful use of perspective to make it look more vertical than it was plus a simple trading of speed for height in a practically empty airliner.

Captain Ned wrote:

When you're empty and on light fuel load...

The 787-9 is 152 tons at operating empty weight - 44,500 lbs heavier than the 787-8, with the same wings, engines and control surfaces.

Captain Ned wrote:

EDIT: OMG, we're doing this again? FFS JaE, stop thinking in numbers 24/7 and try words every now and then. In numbers, that was a waste of fuel. In words, it was a bit of beauty from a class of plane no one ever expected to have some aerobatic chops.

Who's doing what again, Ned? Are you over-reacting to a post to which you already reacted a year ago?

I would not have posted the link to the Boeing video if I didn't appreciate its aesthetic appeal.

However, if you really want to talk about the numbers, the business purpose of the demonstration is to convince some sheik from the Emirates to spend more billions of dollars on U.S. aircraft rather than the European alternative.

It is an impressive video. Even if they are only flying at a 45 degree angle at maximum that's still impressive in an airliner that size no matter how much it has in fuel/passenger weight.

Boeing has posted an uncut version with three views available.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Boeing/ChooseYourView

Cool, but I wanted to see the side view when it did the takeoff to see what angle it really went up at.

These videos are closer to the perpendicular view than the others that I've seen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGd3CSKTwAg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP8JdkBeKVs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZQAqWcpCSs

Thanks! That's more like it, it's a steep climb out but nowhere near the vertical that the camera angle in the Boeing film makes it look.

The takeoff did not look vertical to me in any of the videos at Moses Lake or in Paris. It looks to me as if it is more than 55° but less than 70°. That would still be terrifying as a passenger. If you watched the cockpit view in the Choose Your View options from Boeing, the artificial horizon display occasionally reveals just how hard the bank turns are. When the wings are nearly perpendicular to the ground, you may be turning fast, but you're losing altitude in a hurry, too.

Would love to have been a passenger in the -80 in 1955 when it did it's amazing historical roll. The cool thing is you probably would not have even needed a seatbelt on since it was a constant positive 1g roll I imagine with no or very little lateral G effect at all. You definitely would not have hit the ceiling.