FAA: Big Tech Challenges For Massive Washington, DC Warbirds Flyover 54
coondoggie writes: It will be one of the largest gatherings of flying WWII aircraft in history as 56 famous vintage warbirds will fly through restricted airspace over the National Mall Friday in remembrance of the 70th anniversary of VE-Day or Victory in Europe Day. The huge flyover, dubbed "The Arsenal of Democracy," of so many different types of aircraft – from seaplanes to fighters and the only flying B-29 Superfortress – was no easy undertaking. The first plane should be visible along the National Mall around 12:10 p.m. With roughly 90 seconds between formations, the Flyover will end by 1 p.m. Reagan National Airport will be closed to commercial traffic from 12 noon to 1 p.m. to accommodate the flights. The Flyover will be streamed live here.
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No one "wonders why"; we know exactly why. Years upon years of war and unfunded securities.
Re:How much does this cost taxpayers? (Score:4, Informative)
Basically, a few thousand gallons of gasoline. The airplanes are privately owned.
Nothing. (Score:3)
Basically, a few thousand gallons of gasoline. The airplanes are privately owned.
So close to zero that it doesn't matter. The budget is driven by social security, medicare, and defense. Talk about anything else in the federal budget is almost meaningless until we fix those--it just distracts from the core problem.
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the first two are entirely encapsulated systems and really can't be the problem.
Medicare is paid for by a 2.9 percent tax on income. Fixing it's budget problem of changes in demographics can't be that hard.
Similarly, social security is basically a pay as you go system that is dealing with a demographic shift. You just change to change the tax or benefit replacement rate (fraction of tax paid out per year) and it's fixed.
Defense on the other hand is a problem. I think that if the US spent less on defense our
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Re: Nothing. (Score:1)
Wrong again, dragon breath. Get off your conservative bs platform and get a life. Social security, is not a tax on the wealthy. Its a blanket for the poor. Its only paid for by the poor and yet given to the wealthy. And I did not see, any, wealthy person redistribute the money they received, to some other organization, or charity. In other words the kept it, even though they were giving not as much of their income to get it. You see, someone making a thousand a month, pays a full 7% of their income to get s
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We should divert it .. (Score:3, Funny)
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The B29 is from Texas, the CAF... Commemorative Air Force (formally Confederate Air Force).
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Dang wasn't logged in......
Please post to YouTube? (Score:2)
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What tech challenges? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't get it, what is the big tech challenge to overcome here? Seems like the biggest issues are legal (exemptions from the FAA already made though) or logistical.
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I don't get it, what is the big tech challenge to overcome here? Seems like the biggest issues are legal (exemptions from the FAA already made though) or logistical.
I don't get it either, it sounds like both of the tech challenges mentioned in the article (1000 ft altitude and 90 second space) could be resolved through the use of an altimeter and a stopwatch. As interesting as this may be to airplane buffs, I don't see the relevance to Slashdot unless the planes are piloted by robots... or at least have frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.
Re:What tech challenges? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't get it, what is the big tech challenge to overcome here? Seems like the biggest issues are legal (exemptions from the FAA already made though) or logistical.
Lack of modern istrumentation, radar transponders, and other equipment which is normally used by modern air traffic control systems. You will recall that the newly overhauled system went online 7 days ago (30 Apr 2015):
http://www.usatoday.com/story/... [usatoday.com]
The primary issue won't be in the corridor itself, it'll be getting into and out of it from shared public airspace, and avoiding collisions between the aircraft themselves, many of which do not have anti-collision systems or even radars.
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Lack of modern istrumentation, radar transponders, and other equipment which is normally used by modern air traffic control systems.
That's just BS. First of all, the instrumentation to fly an assigned heading and altitude must already be there, otherwise they just wouldn't be certified to fly. Secondly, there's no problem installing a modern radio stack in an old airplane - you can even have it tucked away in the cockpit so it doesn't interfere with the "old style" cockpit look too much. Tons of old airplanes are retrofitted with new avionics all the time. All you really need is the two boxes near the bottom of this instrument panel [blogspot.com] (re
That's great, but... (Score:2)
This is basically an air show, with aircraft from two fields merging into a single stream of 15 formations. Formations 1, 4, 7, 11, and 15 will each contain a heterogeneous set of aircraft, in some cases mixing planes from different eras. Many of the aircraft are flying on "experimental" certifications.
This is not the same thing as flying a long distance from point A to point B and being able to follow a filed flight plan.
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Issue a mandatory NOTAM. And [already they did] shutdown the local airports.
They do it all the time at Edwards AFB here on the west coast. No one flies into the space and guess what... your tech challenges become zero. None of these aircraft are going to go flying off...like a drone for instance. Only today, the big challenges are RF issues, but luckily these aircraft have no tech that deends on digital RF connections.
I'd still take a B52 and a couple of F22s and JSFs buzzing around with some afterburners r
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I am sure there is a very significant technical challenge getting those awesome aircraft back in the air and more importantly getting them back on the ground safely. However, the link is pure and simple link bait and an extremely low quality rehash of the official website.
I assumed coming from a publication like Network World, there would be some geekery in the article... but was left sadly disappointed.
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I am sure there is a very significant technical challenge getting those awesome aircraft back in the air
The only challenge is the size of the checks. These aircraft have been restored and maintained just as they were in the 1940's -- the only difference is that it's been done by well-paid commercial mechanics making a lot more than the enlisted mechanics who did it in the 1940's, or by retirees doing it for the love of it. The money comes from either wealthy enthusiasts or preservation groups that sell tickets to airshows.
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I don't get it, what is the big tech challenge to overcome here?
The biggest challenge is putting up the miles of anti-gyrocopter netting to keep the event pest-free.
B-29 (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing and hearing the B-29 fly over is quite impressive. I try and imagine what it would be like in 1945 to see a sky full of them. They do a flyover here during the summer and you can pay for a ride although its not cheap.
Re:B-29 (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in '92, as part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first B29 flight, the Boeing Employees Amateur Radio Society (BEARS) had a special event ham radio station on the air. They were set up near the airplane and when one engine was fired up as a demo, their station was unreadable for about 3 minutes. It was pretty neat to hear just over the radio. ...and, yes, I made a contact & got my special event QSL card from K7NWS with a nice photo of a B29 in flight..
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It's a lot cheaper to get a tour of Fifi's cockpit. Tennish years ago it cost me around $20 and I got to sit in the pilot's seat while one of the crew lectured about various bits of the plane and history. We weren't allowed through the tunnel to the gunnery compartment, which I'd really like to see sometime.
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Depending on where you are, it might be the last thing you see.
Anecdote (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Anecdote (Score:4, Interesting)
I read of an early Wellington getting jumped by German fighters and one of its engines set afire. A crewman climbed out onto the wing (wind, Germans, and fire all) with an "engine cover" (IIRC), sticking his hands and feet through the cloth skin and onto the geodesic frame*, and used it to smother the flames. His plane got home that day.
Wellingtons are one of my favorite planes too.
*said frame being why it was possible for shot-up examples to return so often. It was very similar to a rigid airship's frame.
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I just randomly googled that and you ain't kidding: http://albumwar2.com/wp-conten... [albumwar2.com]
Some of those planes have functional bomb releases (Score:3)
Just sayin'...
Too bad the protesting postman... (Score:2)
Too bad the protesting postman didn't just wait for the event, and fly a vintage autogyro.
Just sayin'...
Arsenal of Democracy Ignorance (Score:5, Informative)
I'm seeing a lot of ignorant comments about the phrase "arsenal of democracy". Please educate yourselves [wikipedia.org]. This phrase comes out of the WW2 era in which these birds flew. Manufacturing weapons was a huge part of the US contribution because we could do it without having to worry about Axis bombers hitting our plants. The AoD helped kill the Axis. Please try to separate it from the modern issues. This is history we're talking about.
The largest gatherings of such aircrafts was WW2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Depending on how you define an event, the most WW2 planes flying at once could have been one of several raids.
Good candidates include the bombing of Dreseden, Berlin, Hamburg or London.
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>Dreseden, Berlin, Hamburg or London.
>London
I guess not including the Germans might get them all riled up again.
Reagan National Airport? (Score:2, Funny)
No, sir, I'm afraid not. The name of the airport is "The Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport," named after the famous African American rights advocate Ronald Reagan Washington.
Thanks For All The Notifications (Score:2)
I heard damn-all about this event, and I'm a BIG warbirds fan! Ditto with my favorite online AGW Warbirds forum :-( Hell, I even missed the streaming live!
Sigh ...
HERE'S THE VIDEO (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]