Grizzly Bear Eats Airplane
An unnamed Alaskan bush pilot went on a fishing trip and neglected to wash down his plane afterward. The 1958 Piper Cub was just too much temptation for a bear to bear.
The fishy aroma attracted a passing grizzly bear who, clearly frustrated at not being able to see the lovely “noms” it could smell, took the plane apart in an effort to find it. Aircraft fabric is no match for bear claws. The bear also chomped both tyres for good measure, then departed the scene.
Alaskans are a hardy bunch, however – as tough as the aircraft they fly. The pilot radioed for two new tyres, three cases of duct tape and a couple of rolls of cellophane to be flown in so he could repair his craft and get home.
Duct tape: is there anything it can’t do? The story includes a picture of the plane after repair. Link -via Fark
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Teenager Builds Pedal-Powered Airplane
Photo: Jesse van Kuijk
Dutch teenager Jesse van Kuijk designed and built a crude but functional human-powered aircraft:
Dates pour out of him as he relates the history of human-powered flight. The year 1979 was another landmark: Another craft, dubbed the Gossamer Albatross, made a successful flight over the English Channel, flying over 35 kilometers in less than three hours. The Gossamer Albatross was flown by American Bryan Allen, who now works in California as a software engineer for the Mars exploration project. Van Kuijk contacted Allen and the two exchanged emails about van Kuijk’s dream of self-powered flight.
In 2006, with his calculations complete, van Kuijk began to collect building materials. For over three years he gathered extremely light balsa wood, polyurethane and the light, rip-resistant foil that would eventually line the craft’s 26-meter-wide (85 feet) wings. And then he built what he had designed….
And then suddenly, unbelievably, “the earth under my feet slipped away,” van Kuijk exclaimed afterwards. He was flying! Alone, under his own power and in the aircraft he had designed and built. His aircraft flew, he had always known it would. But he could barely believe he had actually managed to defeat gravity’s pull.
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Flying Drunk
A 65-year-old amateur pilot was arrested for flying drunk after a rescue helicopter had to guide him to the airfield in Schoengleida, Germany. He had drunk wine and beer before taking off, and continued to drink while flying.
”Come on, I know you’re down there,” he radioed. ”Where the bloody hell have you hidden yourself?”
Control tower staff say he also sang a few songs, cracked a mother-in-law joke and told them to ”pull their fingers out as I’ve got a party to go to”.
Fearing instrument failure, the tower scrambled a rescue helicopter, which homed in on the man in clear-blue skies west of the airport, and gave instructions for the pilot to follow it back.
The unnamed man was able to land the Cessna, and “wobbled” to his car. Airfield authorities called police, who arrested the man on his way home. He tested over four times the legal limit for driving. Link -via Arbroath
(image credit: Flickr user jon gos)
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Bride's Bouquet Brings Down Plane
At a wedding in Suvereto, Italy, the plan was to have the bride’s bouquet thrown from an microlight plane flying over the wedding party. A line of women were waiting for the bouquet below. Then things got weird.
… the flowers were sucked into the plane’s engine causing it to catch fire and explode.
The aircraft plunged into a hostel. One passenger on the plane was badly hurt.
But about 50 people who had been in the hostel escaped unscathed, as did the pilot.
Isidoro Pensieri, who tossed the bouquet from the plane, suffered multiple fractures and was taken to a hospital in Pisa. Link -via Arbroath
(image credit: Flickr user godutchbaby)
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Fly Powered Aircraft
Photo: Eric Long / Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
It goes without saying that the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has some of the neatest collection of planes in the world, but this one is particularly intriguing: fly-powered aircrafts built by famed aircraft modelered Frank Ehling in the 1970s.
The AirSpace Blog has more:
Designed and built by famed aircraft modeler Frank Ehling in the 1970s, they are the smallest flying models the Museum owns. But more unusual than their size is that they are powered by flies – yes, you heard right, houseflies, the insect. Constructed from balsa wood and red tissue paper, the one-fly design has a wingspan of two inches, and the two-fly version, which features a delta-wing design, is four inches wide. In both cases, contact cement was used to attach the live powerplant to the fuselage.
If you’re skeptical, there’s a video clip of another fly-powered airplane, this time by inventor Thomas Fetterman (oh, you can also buy the kit from his website)
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Pilot Lands Plane With One Wing
[YouTube - Link]
To the horror of spectators, this stunt plane begins to tailspin toward the ground when it loses its right wing in midair. Amazingly, at the last second the pilot is able to land safely.
– via holeinthedonut
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Cat Plane
Everyone knows cats love cardboard boxes, so here’s a classy prop airplane made of cardboard by SUCK UK for your cat to play in. He or she can pretend to be fighting the Red Baron …
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The World's First Jumbo Jet Hostel
Big jumbo jets have to be taken out of service after so many years in the air for safety reasons, which leaves the owners with the problem of what to do with them. Most end up in vast aeroplane grave yards where they’re stripped for their useful parts then left to rust.
This 1976 Boeing 747-200 plane (formerly of Singapore Airlines) in Stockholm, Sweden got a lucky break when a budding hostel entrepreneur bought it and converted it into the worlds first Jumbo Jet hostel.
With suitably uniformed "cabin crew" and loads of the plane’s original features, the grounded aircraft is a unique hostel experience. You can even spend the night as the captain in the converted cockpit suite!
More pictures at the link below.
From the mid of January, hostel guests will, for the first time ever, be able to spend the night in a real, seasoned jumbo jet – on the ground! This is the perfect way to start your trip abroad. The plane is a used out jumbo jet model 747-200 made in 1976. It has been awarded a brand new, modern interior decoration, offering night guests an experience apart. It’s exciting for aviation enthusiasts and families with children as well as for business people. This exhilarating experience leaves no-one indifferent –we promise.
Link – via funtasticus
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Aviation Humor
After hitting pay dirt with his Military Truisms forum post, Neatorama reader SparkS did it again with this gem: Aviation Humor.
This one made me ROFL:
The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one’s gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground
control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206":Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."
Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."
The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"
Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I’m looking up our gate location now."
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"
Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944 — but I didn’t land."
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