With a love of aviation since childhood I'm a co-host on @AirplaneGeeks, @TJITReward, & a regular on other well known international aviation podcasts.
Portland, ME
Joined March 2010
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Main(e) man Micah retweeted
Today we celebrate the birthday of Admiral Arleigh Burke, a naval leader whose legacy continues to shape the U.S. Navy and Bath Iron Works. A WWII Navy Cross recipient and the only person to serve three terms as Chief of Naval Operations, he is the namesake of the Navy’s longest-running shipbuilding program – the DDG 51‑class destroyers. At BIW, we’re honored to build these ships and carry forward his legacy.
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
In 1942, an American Navy officer watched Japanese guards beat a fellow prisoner until he was nearly dead.
More than 2,000 Allied prisoners were watching. Nobody could stop it.
Then one American stepped forward.
He offered to take the rest of the punishment himself.
The Japanese guards were so stunned that they stopped.
This is the story of Richard N. Antrim, the man who earned the Medal of Honor inside a Japanese prison camp..🧵1/6
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
Welcome to Episode 144 of The Journey Is The Reward!
On this episode, Brian continues his trip to Brisbane, complete with fighter jet flybys, native wildlife encounters, friends and some unexpected transit quirks. Cheers and fly safely.
thejourneyisthereward.org @Mainefly
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
This one doesn't just annoy me, it annoys Admiral Rickover.
A 737 is leaving Cyprus en route Athens.
Everything is peachy until it climbs up above 12k feet, when the "takeoff configuration" alarm goes off. This is a mystery, since the plane is long since beyond takeoff.
And it's such a conundrum that the pilots contact the airline's ops department to ask for help. An airline engineer comes on the circuit and asks the pilots to check the PRESSURIZATION MODE SELECTOR and make sure it's selected to AUTO, not MANUAL.
Instead, the pilot goes on some witch hunt for the circuit breaker to the air conditioning system.
Meanwhile, back aft in the cabin, all the oxygen masks deployed. Now, you'd think that event would convey some valuable information to the pilots. Did a stewardess call up the flight deck and say, "Dudes, WTF is up with the O2 masks?" No. No she didn't.
Meanwhile, the aeroplane keeps climbing on autopilot and puts itself in a holding pattern in the Athens approach.
Everyone on board goes unconscious from hypoxia. Pilots and the passengers all expire from lack of oxygen.
A couple F-16s take off to intercept and find out what's going on. They see the pilot seat empty and the first officer slumped over.
But this is the "ghost flight." Plane keeps on flying in its holding pattern, burning fuel.
But wait, there's activity in the cockpit. A civilian comes in with a portable O2 bottle. He jumps into the captain's seat and takes the controls.
Too late. Plane's outta gas. Engines flame out, plane crashes.
If the O2 bottle guy had come up sooner, he could have landed the plane, since he was a pilot himself. The delay remains a mystery.
The O2 bottle dude is able to direct the plane away from the city and suburbs of Athens toward unpopulated areas. Plane crashes. Everybody dies.
So what happened? The flight the night before had a suspected cabin leak, so the engineer did a pressure test of the cabin after leak repair. To do that, the cabin pressurization switch had to be taken from AUTO to MANUAL.
After the test was successful, the switch should have been returned to AUTO. In MANUAL, the cabin would not be pressurized. So, at altitude, there was no oxygen.
So, the first error was the engineer's, failing to re-line up the switch. The second was the pre-takeoff checklist work, which specifically called for that switch position to be checked and put into AUTO.
The post-takeoff checklist also required verification of the switch position. Somehow, the pilots missed it.
Look, you dudes had 2 separate checklists to verify this switch position and you humped the pooch on both of them. Then, the ops engineer done TOLE YOU to check the switch when you called him, and did you listen?
No. No you did not. You fucked around with a circuit breaker to an air conditioning sytem.
In the Nuclear Navy, a valve or switch being out-of-position is a gigantically big deal. People experience harsh discipline for fucking up switch and valve lineups. Because one little toggle switch out of position can kill you.
youtube.com/watch?v=ve8hP9v5…
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
🇬🇧A British submarine vanished with 61 men aboard.
Eighteen months later, one of them walked into a British consulate in Turkey!
On December 6, 1941, HMS Perseus struck an Italian mine off the Greek island of Kefalonia and plunged to the seabed.
John Capes was trapped in the stern with three wounded men. Wearing a primitive Davis escape apparatus, he opened the hatch and began an almost unimaginable ascent, from roughly 170 feet (51,8 m) below the surface.
Capes emerged alone into the freezing darkness. Then he swam nearly five miles to Kefalonia.
Greek islanders found him and risked their lives to hide him from Italian occupation troops. For 18 months, they moved him between homes and villages before secretly carrying him by boat to Turkey.
No one else aboard Perseus survived.
For decades, some doubted Capes. He had been traveling as a passenger, so his name did not appear on the submarine’s crew list. His escape simply sounded impossible.
Then, in 1997, divers found Perseus at 170 feet. Its stern escape hatch was open. Inside, crucial details matched Capes’s account.
He had escaped a steel coffin beneath the sea, and ordinary Greek civilians had kept him alive.
We post a forgotten World War II story every day. Most people never see them. Follow @Vanguard_WW2 so you don’t miss the next one.
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
On this day in 1845, the United States Navy opens an academy for aspiring midshipmen in Annapolis, Maryland. The first class has just 50 cadets.
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
Switches create muscle memory. It offers the ability to operate controls without looking, by feel. Shaping the switches allow identification.
Touch screens offer none of this. Phone, car, aircraft, it doesn't matter. Touch screens are infinitely less for critical operations.
Touchscreen cockpits display units are here.
The new Touchscreen Control Display Unit (TCDU), featuring an AMLCD screen, is now available for retrofit on the 737 MAX and NG, while also being rolled out on new MAX aircraft as an optional feature.
Pilots will probably say: “I can’t stand touchscreens in the cockpit. There’s nothing wrong with the FMC we have. Give me my buttons.”
Fair point. We used to say the same about cars—now most of us have adapted to touchscreens.
But from a maintenance perspective? We actually love them.
Usually, maintenance replace FMCs because of loss of tactile feedback from worn-out buttons.
For dispatch, an inoperative FMC may be deactivated by opening and collaring its CB, but it must be replaced because it may affect ETOPS/EDTO operations.
For the flight crew, when operating with one FMC inoperative, the FMC Source Select Switch is selected to the operational FMC (BOTH ON L or BOTH ON R) to accomplish all Flight Management Computing tasks.
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
Phil's Airline Fleet News is back.
Please note the new URL
philsairlinefleetnews.co.uk
#aviation #airlines #aircraft #fleets #avgeek #data #intelligence
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
An American fighter pilot had spent nearly 20 hours stranded in the Pacific near a Japanese stronghold.
Then a Navy Catalina arrived.
One of its crewmen stripped naked and went into the water to bring him aboard.
A photographer happened to be there to capture it.
This is the story behind the photo..🧵1/5
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
Tarihte bugün, Japon İmparatorluk Donanmasının 3'üncü Yamato sınıfı muharebe gemisi olacak olan "Shinano" denize indirilmişti. İlk planlamada bir muharebe gemisi olarak bitirilmesi hedeflenmiş ancak 2'nci Dünya Harbinin gidişatı ile değişen ihtiyaçlardan dolayı bir uçak gemisine çevrilmesine karar verilmişti..
Shinano, döneminin en büyük ve en iyi zırh korumasına sahip uçak gemisiydi. Ancak bu heybetli uçak gemisinin kariyeri çok uzun sürmedi. Shinano tam olarak tamamlandıktan sadece 10 gün sonra seyir halinde iken Amerikan denizaltısı USS Archerfish tarafından tespit edilmiş ve torpido atışları ile batırılmıştır. Uçak gemisi Shinano, hala günümüzde bir denizaltı tarafından batırılmış en büyük gemidir.. 🎌
Tasarım olarak çok sevdiğim bir uçak gemisidir ve Yamato sınıfına mensup bir gemi olduğu için yeri ayrıdır..
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
15 officers. One room in Annapolis. An idea that has endured for 153 years.
On 9 October 1873, a group of naval officers gathered at the U.S. Naval Academy to establish a forum where professionals could openly discuss the issues shaping the Navy and sea power.
From those conversations grew the U.S. Naval Institute—and Proceedings.
153 years later, the mission endures. Dare to Read, Think, Speak, and Write.
Three October Anniversaries. One Naval Story.
usni.org/magazines/naval-his…
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
The execution of former Maj. Nidal Hassan is a military matter, not the carrying out of a civilian criminal sentence.
He was convicted by Court Martial by a panel of Army Officers who then sentenced him to death.
He murdered fellow uniformed military personnel while on active duty during wartime. That's treason.
His conduct was no different than had he been in deployed front line unit and turned his weapon on his fellow soldiers.
This is Military Justice. It is by the Military for the benefit of the Military.
Quit equating it to a civilian criminal offense.
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
In 1944, an American pilot landed his tiny two-man floatplane near a Japanese stronghold to rescue downed airmen.
He ended up with nine men aboard.
The plane was so overloaded it couldn't take off. So he used it as a boat, carrying the men across the water toward an American submarine.
This is the incredible story behind this WWII photograph..🧵1/5
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
At the beginning of 1944, these American pilots were preparing to go to war.
Six months later they posed for this photograph.
The scoreboard in front of them read:
310 Japanese aircraft destroyed in aerial combat.
Twenty six of their pilots had become aces.
Their air group commander had become the highest scoring US Navy ace of World War II.
This is the story of VF 15, Fighting Fifteen..🧵1/5
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
In Ask the Pilot...
The Pilot Threat. FlyDubai Incident Raises Tough Questions.
askthepilot.com/pilot-threat…
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
Happy 91st birthday to Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke, the 10th man to walk on the Moon! 🎂
Duke was the CAPCOM in Mission Control as Apollo 11 landed on the lunar surface on July 20, 1929. He said that his anxiety in Mission Control during the Apollo 11 landing was worse than that he experienced during the Apollo 16 landing. We wish him many happy landings in the days ahead!
ALT Charlie Duke stands next to the lunar roving vehicle at North Ray crater on the third extravehicular activity in April 1972. Behind the rover and astronaut, the Moon's "sky" is a deep black.
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
Who is in favor of a Class Action Suit against the parties involved that made ethanol a requirement to be added to fuel..
-Its like buying ham that has water mixed in...you pay the ham price for water
-buying scallops paying for water
We want gasoline not alcohol
How many mowers have died
weedeaters, boat motors, the carb industry makes a shit load of money, the mower companies sell new mowers cause the other ones dont run due to ethanol
LET'S DO IT !
Main(e) man Micah retweeted
Today we remember President Jimmy Carter on the 102nd anniversary of his birth.
Born #OTD in 1924, Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946 and went on to serve as a U.S. Navy submariner. Selected by then-Captain Hyman G. Rickover for the Navy’s pioneering nuclear propulsion program, Carter helped lay the groundwork for a new era in the submarine force before leaving active duty in 1953.
His connection to the Silent Service endured throughout his life. In 2005, the Navy commissioned USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23), the third and final Seawolf-class submarine, in his honor.
On his birthday, we remember a Naval Academy graduate, submarine officer, Commander in Chief, and a life of service that began in the U.S. Navy.
usni.org/magazines/naval-his…
