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This past Thursday afternoon the 17th in the waiting room VA eye clinic...
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That's about the distance I need to hold my Montbrilliant these days just to read the darn thing. Twenty five feet further back would be better.

"Doc, I can't read my watch"
"Get a new watch"
"No, but i'll take new eyes"

 

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Emergency II today - just in case

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You’re gonna need a bigger plane

 

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Brand new B50 Cockpit Night Mission with blue MOP dial. Love... Love... Love... the dial! The camera just doesn't do it justice. The face almost looks like it has its own internal lighting source when the sun hits it just right.
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Under a near UV light source showing the Super Luminova
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Randy

That sure has some presence. Nice Randy.

 

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Not technically a Breitling but it has some pilot heritage.

Here I was doing my conversion onto an Iskra. Old Polish jet, winds up quite nicely but safety not so good. It was fun at the time. More photos to come.

 

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A little bit of ground attack today

 

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My hotel room tonight is straight out of the Twilight Zone. When a client said “we’ll book you somewhere nice - we get a good rate” that was clearly some kind of code. Thinking of doing rolled towels with mini soap at home. And I got a nice note saying I had been upgraded.

 

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Interesting! I wonder what the "standard" room was like? I do a huge amount of travel with my company. Several years ago, we were transferring some of our tech to a Japanese company that we were partnering with. This Japanese company invited several of us to Japan for a couple of weeks to work out the details of the transfer. We were told that they were paying for all travel expenses and would make all the arrangements (red-flag goes up in my mind). Low and behold, they flew the entire team out on JAL - First Class on one of their brand-new 787s and put us up in the Ritz Carlton in Osaka. I was able to swing two more trips over on the same project before the tech-transfer was completed. I have spent enough time in "questionable" hotels in my time. This was a refreshing reprieve.

Randy, that's what you secretly hope for hen they say these things. It's even nicer when it's on somebody else's dime.

I suspect that the basic room didn't have air conditioning, it's hard to imagine what the bed would have been like. Still, in regional areas I've learned to be open to new accommodation experiences.

I stayed in one of these rooms (not my pic) in Kikwit one night. No air conditioner and no mosquito net and smack bang in Central Africa. The air con is not because I'm fussy, it stops the mosquitoes to a point. Basic rooms are much the same in Africa or central Australia.

 

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A little bit of Montbrillant Datora and a red Pitts Special. Final briefing from the airshow starter.

 

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A Supermarine day

 

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Prepping the beast

 

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What is that beast, IAP?

It’s a Cessna Dragonfly - A37b light attack jet. A positive power to weight stripped off all its weapons and drop tanks. And believe it or not, it was made by Cessna. The Cessna logo on the rudder pedals seems entirely out of place.

They were designed for counterinsurgency work. Acceleration is 0 to 105 knot rotate in 3.8 seconds. A beast! Great air show aircraft. A real thrill to fly. Still operational in South America, often used to target the cartels.

 

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Iskra jet

 

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Snow, snow, snow and animals.

Suspect that the snow will close the roads tonight which may lead to a need for creative thinking to get out of here despite having a four wheel drive.

 

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Taking the lead from @stevomcgee - it's the Emergency II with Co-Pilot. Just in case anything nasty happens at the office...

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Randy, what time zone do you track via the time shown on the bracelet display? Was it intended to work like a GMT? It’s a very nice piece of kit you have there.

Crown and Calibre had an article about a guy who activated it after being chomped by a bear. If he activated the emergency on that frequency - albeit a legitimate emergency, I wonder if the FAA kicked him in the pants for using aviation rescue channels.

That sort of go anywhere functionality makes it more attractive than lugging an orange EPIRB around.

 

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We're slowly extracting ourselves from the Congo Basin. Breitling Navitimer today, safely tucked away with no overt watch selfies in the field

We were heading out of the bush and the road was pretty screwed up. This group of guys were trying to make the road passable and after 3 hours of helping out, we passed this point. It's amazing what a small washout does to travel plans. They are brilliant guys - A round of applause for Philippe, Dami, Jean, Seko and Luc.

We're now significantly behind and need one internal flight and then may have to fly out through Luanda/Angola for Europe.

 

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Father and Son out to breakfast this morning…

Biggest and best cinnamon rolls around!
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That cinnamon roll… !!

An ambulance is on its way with two shots of insulin 😄

 

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Flashback: Saudi Arabia - riding The Empty Quarter - Navitimer

 

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Flew the Striker in the UK. More pics to come plus flying the Spitfire.

 

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Looking forward to hearing some great stories, IAP! Standing by...

Randy

Here's a few more pics Randy.

The Striker is is a definitively subsonic aircraft that maxes out at around 515 mp/h - Mach 0.7 depending on conditions. Approaching that speed the bow wave building up in front of the aircraft is significant due to the chunky profile. You can spin it for up to four turns in a clean configuration at 18,000 ft minimum with up to 1600 lbs of fuel but I have no desire to try that. Spin recovery is conventional.

Despite a functional oxygen system fed through the mask, Strikers are pressurised. The canopy slides forwards and drops about an inch and full pressurisation happens in about a second which is quite noticeable to crew. The wing dihedral is good for some rolling manoeuvres because it pulls the aircraft through the roll a bit. Especially barrel rolling which requires simultaneous changes in roll and elevator through the figure. It also behaves in the circuit. It's obviously a much faster circuit than prop aircraft but visibility, respectable control authority and such make it a quite stable aircraft to land if you get the numbers right.