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VIEWING 1 - 10 OUT OF 63 TOTAL
blue angels crash :(
DATE: 26 Apr 2007, 2:29 pm / MOOD: Disapointed
BEAUFORT, S.C. Apr 21, 2007 (AP)— A Navy Blue Angel jet crashed during an air show Saturday, plunging into a neighborhood of small homes and trailers and killing the pilot, the county coroner said. Witnesses said the planes were flying in formation during the show at the Marine Corps Air Station and one dropped below the trees and crashed, sending up clouds of smoke. At least one home was on fire. Raymond Voegeli, a plumber, was backing out of a driveway when the plane ripped through a grove of pine trees, dousing his truck in flames and debris. He said wreckage hit "plenty of houses and mobile homes." "It was just a big fireball coming at me," said Voegeli, 37. "It was just taking pine trees and just clipping them." County Coroner Curt Copeland said the pilot was killed, but did not release an identification. Copeland said there was a lot of debris at the crash site and described the scene as horrific. John Sauls, who lives near the crash site, said the planes were banking back and forth before one disappeared, and a plume of smoke shot up. "It's one of those surreal moments when you go, 'No, I didn't just see what I saw,'" Sauls said. At the Blue Angels command headquarters at Pensacola Naval Air Station the petty officer on duty said he "had no comment at this time." The phone rang unanswered at the Marine base. The Blue Angels fly F/A-18 Hornets at high speeds in close formations, and their pilots are considered the Navy's elite. They don't wear the traditional G-suits that most jet pilots use to avoid blacking out during maneuvers. The suits inflate around the lower body to keep blood in the brain, but which could cause a pilot to bump the control stick a potentially deadly move when flying inches from other planes. Instead, Blue Angels manage G-forces by tensing their abdominal muscles. Saturday's show was at the beginning of the team's flight season, and more than 100,000 people were expected to attend. The elite team, which is based at Pensacola Naval Air Station, recently celebrated its 60th anniversary.
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Crush?
DATE: 22 Feb 2007, 12:43 pm / MOOD: Other
come on guys n girls save me the painstaking job of typing everyones names in... who sent me the crush??? ive typed everyone i can think of off the top of my head 
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anyone wanna try this is a duo wiv me?
Today at Gt Oakley
owen truelove
DATE: 20 Nov 2006, 9:53 am / MOOD: Other
Air Commodore Owen Truelove Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 20/11/2006 Air Commodore Owen Truelove, who has died aged 69, followed a very successful career as an engineer officer in the RAF by making an epic flight from England to New Zealand in a motorised glider. Truelove had a passion for flying and was bitterly disappointed when he was unable to be a pilot in the RAF due to a minor defect in his eyesight. He took up gliding in 1954 as a recreation, later becoming an instructor and making many long-distance flights. In early 2004 he decided to visit his son in New Zealand to experience flying in the mountains of South Island, renowned for providing some of the world's best and most demanding conditions for gliding. He had recently bought a Stemme 10V motorised glider and decided to fly it to New Zealand rather than "put it in a box and ship it out". advertisementIt was a major undertaking to fly 25,000km in such an aircraft, a feat that had never been attempted before, but just the sort of challenge that motivated Truelove. After months of planning he set off in September 2004. His route took him over Eastern Europe, across Saudi Arabia and then to the Persian Gulf. His glider was not equipped with lights and he had to make a very difficult night landing at Dubai. Mechanical problems held him up in India and Indonesia, a number of air traffic control authorities were unfamiliar with his type of flying and some other stopovers did not have the appropriate fuel. He also had to contend with all types of weather in his lightly built motor glider. Determined to continue, he finally arrived on the east coast of Australia where his son James joined him for the final "island hopping" legs to New Zealand. He made landfall at Whangarei at the end of November after a nine-week flight, having experienced many difficulties that would have deterred all but the most determined pilots. As his son commented: "We said at the start, if anyone could do it he'll do it and he did." Truelove had a second aim for the flight and he collected a large sum for the RAF Benevolent Fund. Owen James Truelove was born on October 24 1937. He won a scholarship to Dulwich College, a school to which he remained devoted. He gained an engineering cadetship at the RAF Technical College, Henlow, and, on graduation as a pilot officer in 1959, he was assessed as the outstanding officer cadet and awarded the sword of honour. He also excelled at rugby and as the athletics captain. Truelove's first appointment was to the V-bomber base at RAF Finningley, where he was the junior engineering officer with responsibility for nuclear weapons, the first of a series of appointments in this weapons engineering specialisation. After serving in Aden on a Hunter squadron during the Radfan campaign, he was appointed engineering project officer for the US-built F-111 tactical nuclear bomber ordered for the RAF, but which was later to be the victim of a defence cut. During his many visits to the United States he took a set of cricket gear in an attempt to introduce the game to his American colleagues. In 1969 Truelove continued his long association with the Vulcan V-bomber as an engineering officer when he was posted to RAF Waddington near Lincoln. After two years he was appointed MBE. He then served as the senior armament officer at the Air Headquarters Cyprus, where he had responsibility for training and commanding a rapid-response team for dealing with a nuclear weapon incident. His team were trained as parachutists and Truelove was awarded his parachute wings. He returned to Waddington as the senior engineering officer before his promotion to group captain and command of the RAF Apprentice School at Halton. He served on the Ordnance Board (nuclear division) before taking a defence fellowship at the London School of Economics. After promotion to air commodore, Truelove's final appointment was as Director of Air Engineering in the MoD, where he had particular responsibility for reliability and maintainability policy and its attendant costs, a topic that had attracted his ardent support for many years. He was also responsible for the RAF adopting a system of integrated logistic support for new weapon systems. He retired from the RAF in November 1989. Truelove started a second career as a defence and logistics consultant, becoming chairman of Logistic Support Consultants. He was also a consultant to the Boeing Aircraft Company and did much to initiate the C17 Galaxy transport aircraft and Chinook helicopter contracts. As a senior RAF officer commented of this period in his career: "He was a thorough professional, who balanced nicely the need to support Boeing, without losing sight of his RAF roots." After his second retirement, Truelove devoted a great deal of time to gliding, commuting between his home in Cornwall and New Zealand. He was based with the Omarama Gliding Club on New Zealand's South Island to help establish his son's para-gliding business and became president of the club. Truelove was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. A very competitive and determined man, described by one colleague as "indestructible", he was a keen and proficient sportsman, pilot and skier. Although an individualist, he was a generous and hospitable man, gaining much pleasure from cooking and entertaining. Owen Truelove and his son James were killed on November 14 when their Stemme glider crashed in the mountains near Omarama during a gliding competition. His wife Jenny, whom he married in September 1965, and a son and daughter survive him.
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winch duty
DATE: 19 Nov 2006, 4:23 pm / MOOD: Happy
hahaha i survived my first official winch duty 2day  and i had to deal with the crappy retrieve winch on the other end too but yay i didnt kill anyone or even nearly kill anyone wiv my launches oh yes  
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sad loss to the gliding world
DATE: 17 Nov 2006, 12:02 pm / MOOD: Other
Record glider pilot dies with son in peak crash From Bernard Lagan in Sydney ONE of Britain's most accomplished glider pilots has been found dead, with his son, in the wreckage of his aircraft on a mountainside in New Zealand. A search party found retired RAF Air Commodore Owen Truelove, 67, of Cornwall, and his son, James, 37, in the remains of Mr Truelove's sophisticated German-made Stemme glider on Thursday afternoon. They had last been seen late on Wednesday afternoon soaring over the Lindis Ridge on the edge of the Southern Alps in New Zealand. The pair had been reported missing at 8.30pm on Wednesday more than seven hours after they had taken off from the small Omarama airfield a popular gliding venue. They had been competing in a gliding competition. Mr Truelove had been a glider pilot for nearly 50 years. In 2004 he flew his motorised Stemme glider from Britain to New Zealand a 14,700-mile (23,500km) journey that had never before been attempted in a low-powered glider. Mr Truelove's flight path took him across more than 20 countries, including Germany, Oman, India, Malaysia and Australia. He completed the longest and most treacherous leg of the journey the 530-nautical mile trip over water from Norfolk Island to New Zealand in five hours. During the journey from Britain Mr Truelove flew solo for a total of 170 hours. Along the way he was fκted by Saudi royalty and stranded in India for 16 days because of engine problems. The small engine on the machine was intended only for take-offs and to enable the glider to maintain altitude, but its more frequent use enabled Mr Truelove to reach New Zealand in about ten weeks. Mr Truelove was always reticent when asked about his achievement and uttered just a few words to the scores of journalists who greeted him upon his arrival in New Zealand in his glider: "Wonderful so super to be here." The Air Commodore, an engineering officer in the RAF for 33 years who rose to become director of engineering and an expert on nuclear weapons, decided to fly his glider to New Zealand in response to the high cost of shipping. He kept his glider in New Zealand to take advantage of what he considered to be the best gliding conditions in the world, around Omarama. He is listed as president of the Omarama Gliding Club but maintained a home in Cornwall. His son, James, had moved to New Zealand and worked as a paragliding instructor. The wreckage of their aircraft was spotted from a helicopter on a high gravel slope near Mount Prospect, about 20 miles (30km) west of Omarama, yesterday afternoon. Their bodies were recovered by a team that landed from a helicopter and had to battle strong winds and driving rain. Bill Walker, a spokesman for the Omarama Gliding Club, said that the glider's fuselage was intact but that the wings were in three pieces. The weather in the Southern Alps at the time of the crash was described by police Sergeant Wayne Brew as extreme. Mr Walker said that although the weather was demanding, its severity did not justify suspending the competition. 
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plane meets car :S
glider insurance
flight patterns vid
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