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General Aviation and you

twinjet

twinjet

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#1
Welp, take two in the Aviation and You thread series!

Read take one below:
Jet engines and you

Thanks for following with me! In today's installment, we will discuss more dangers of working at an airport.

Ted Stevens International - it's quiet. It's cold. It's hot. Noisy. Busy. Chaotic!!

One night I was driving round the B concourse outside where Delta airliners park. As I pass, three King Air planes are doing the do-si-do as two depart to taxi and one arrives to park. After yielding, I continue driving while keeping my eyes on the plane that parked.

At this time, I assure myself the planes behind me aren't coming after me.

The scary thing about aircraft propelled by reciprocating engines is that they can be stupid quiet until they're taking off or until you're right next to 'em. As soon as I hear the propeller turning, I look and see the Caravan about 20 feet away and not stopping. I floor it and the Ford pickup I'm in zips away in about half a second after I slam the gas (still too long!).

I made it safe, thankfully. But it was the scariest moment of my life as I nearly faced certain death.

And that, kids, is why you maintain situational awareness at all times - particularly within the airport operations area. Thanks for reading!

Hopefully this concludes the Aviation and You thread series.
 
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#5
David Jayne said:
Well geeze I'm glad you're ok but how the hell did that happen? Isn't ground control supposed to be watching out for that stuff?
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They direct aircraft and ensure no incursions between aircraft. Ground service vehicles are on their own. They teach us to be vigilant...

The plane was parked outside the terminal. There is a "tug road" which splits aircraft parking from the taxiway.

Here's a rough sketch of what happened.

Screenshot_2016-01-18-18-57-42.png
 
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#8
sissy kathy said:
I used to work cargo loads on USAF aircraft in Ethiopia, C-141s and a few C-130s. The C-130s were (are) turbo prop aircraft, they always scared the little brown pellets out of me.
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I used to live a mile away from a base. It was cool at first - F-18s and C-17s, the occasional AWACS flying overhead during the day- but then, it was annoying. Then, I started working nights. Ohhh boy.
 
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#12
I volunteered for the flight service crew on our ship. There was some kind of benefit associated with it, which I can't remember now.
After about a month of that, I decided it wasn't worth the extra benefit.
I felt like I was risking my life every time a helicopter came in to land.
At one point, Aviation Boatswain's Mate was the most dangerous job in the US Navy.
If you didn't get blown off the deck by an aircraft, you would get shocked to death by static electricity.
 
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#13
twinjet said:
I used to live a mile away from a base. It was cool at first - F-18s and C-17s, the occasional AWACS flying overhead during the day- but then, it was annoying. Then, I started working nights. Ohhh boy.
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I lived in rural Lincolnshire for awhile. The Warthogs and Harriers were the best. I guess they were practicing low level navigation without hills.
 
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#15
Once, years ago, I was camping out in Presque Isle, MI, across the north bay from the lighthouse. There was an air national guard base in northern Michigan and the pilots would target the lighthouse for practice attack runs. I was sunbathing in the bed of my PU truck when a fighter came directly over my camp site at what seemed like treetop level (though prolly not) and scared the bejeebers outta me. I saw the plane first, but the roar of the after burner came about a second afterward.

Better than a high colonic. :dead:
 
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#16
I always notice if the planes sound different as they approach in the landing pattern. One evening before the sun had set I heard what sounded like an unbalanced load of laundry in the wash machine approaching, I ran out of the front of the house to see as it was that loud. As I made it to the front lawn I looked back over the house as a 737 clanged past trailing 30 feet of flame out the port engine........... I thought it was going to explode, scariest thing I've ever seen, I remember going cold thinking I was about to see a lot of people die. It was at about 400 feet in the pattern for the #2 runway, absolutely surreal as it continued on towards the runway. The local news later reported that many people had seen it, evidently it had ingested a bird.
 
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#18
TBird1958 said:
I always notice if the planes sound different as they approach in the landing pattern. One evening before the sun had set I heard what sounded like an unbalanced load of laundry in the wash machine approaching, I ran out of the front of the house to see as it was that loud. As I made it to the front lawn I looked back over the house as a 737 clanged past trailing 30 feet of flame out the port engine........... I thought it was going to explode, scariest thing I've ever seen, I remember going cold thinking I was about to see a lot of people die. It was at about 400 feet in the pattern for the #2 runway, absolutely surreal as it continued on towards the runway. The local news later reported that many people had seen it, evidently it had ingested a bird.
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Those CFM engines are durable. Check this out.
 
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