We heard the unfortunate news today about adventurer Steve Fossett disappearing during what by accounts was a simple pleasure flight in good weather. He departed the Flying M Ranch southeast of Reno, NV in a Citabria Super Decathlon Monday morning on a local flight and did not return. The Flying M Ranch is owned by the Hilton Family of hotel fame. Finding the ranch on a map wasn’t easy - so we’ve created the simple map below showing the location of the Flying M. We suggest you view the map in Google Earth to get an appreciation for the mountainous terrain nearby.

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Flying M Ranch - Switch to Hybrid Mode or use the View in Google Earth Button for best results!

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Update:We appreciate the wonderful response we’ve been getting about our Airport Videos Google Earth layer below! We’ve got an inbox full of corrections, deletions, and new videos to work through thanks to your help. If you’ve saved the Airport Video layer to your ‘My Places’ folder in Google Earth, it will update automatically each time you load it.

It’s been a long time coming, but yesterday’s release of Google Earth 4.2 covered widely on the internet it is now possible to embed flash videos, such as those on YouTube into the windows version of Google Earth.

Working with EarthNC.com, we rolled together a bit of code that searched YouTube for videos tagged with airport ICAO (international identifier) codes and built a nice worldwide map of airport videos. To see the videos, just click on an airport icon in the map. The resulting map includes over 2800 videos. If the airport has more than 1 video (and many do), you can browse between them using the controls below the video player.

We’re not claiming to have exhaustively searched YouTube or error checked every video, in fact we had to refine our search to lower the number of false matches - but this also cut out a lot of airports. We’ve provided an e-mail link with each video so you can help us weed out incorrect or inappropriate videos. We’ll rerun the search from time-to-time. If you tend to post airport related videos, be sure to tag them with the full 4 character ICAO code and the word ‘airport’. We also suggest that you use YouTube’s new geotagging feature to add a specific latitude/longitude to your video as we will check for this in the future. To submit a video directly, use our new Video Submission Form, all you need is the video link from YouTube, Revver, or other online services, and we’ll add it to the map.

Open in Google Earth 4.2 for Windows ** You Must Download and Install the latest Google Earth for Windows for the Videos to Play! **:

View YouTube Airport Videos by PlanePlaces.com in Google Earth

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This map requires the latest version of Google Earth for Windows which you can get free using the ‘Google Pack’ button below.

The pictured aircraft is a 1979 Piper Arrow registered to Flight Safety International in Vero Beach Florida. According to the sketchy details sent with the pictures, the Arrow was flying somewhere over Florida when it struck the turkey vulture. Per the same report, the aircraft flew “fine”, but was a bit “mushy” on landing.

We were unable to trace a date to the pictures, nor did a search of the NTSB accident database or FAA incident database turn up a hit for the N number - but we will check again in a few weeks. We also came up short on an internet search. If you have more information, please contact us via the reply link below.

N6533C as an N number has its own history - having once graced the Pan Am Clipper “Flying Arrow” in the guise of a DC-6B which entered service in 1952.

The opening slide reads:

“This recontructions was created from a base of information collected from the internet, TV and radio reports, and principally from interviews (broadcast on TV) of people that witnessed the accident.”

Slide 2 recaps the basic information about the tradgedy:

“A communication failure may have caused the fall of GOL flight 1907, last Friday (the 29th). A source from the [aviation] sector confirmed reporting from the “O Globo” newspaper that a Legacy jet, built by Embaer and sold to an American business, was flying at 37,000 feet in the area of Serra de Cachimbo, with the permission of the Brasilia control tower. [Meanwhile] the Manaus control tower authorized a GOL Boeing 737-800, with 155 people aboard, to climb from 35,000 to 39,000 feet at the request of the pilot. But the two tower did not communicate …”

Impact Theory

The slides then present the author’s impact theory which explains both the minimal (relatively speaking) damage to the Legacy and catastrophic damage to the 737. Basically, the author suggests that the left winglet of the Legacy severed the left wing of the 737 near the outboard aileron. As the 737 wing portion came free, portions damaged the left horizontal stabilizer on the Legacy’s T-tail.

Sufficient wing area (and aileron) was lost on the 737 to precipitate an unrecoverable left roll and pitch-down into a ‘corkscrew’ dive. The author suggests an average velocity of 350 km/h during the dive for a total duration of 1 minute 53 seconds to impact. It is unclear from the slides the source for these numbers. The author also suggests that portions of the aircraft broke apart prior to impact due to overloading during the dive.

The final slide shows main fuselage and wing roots of the 737 as they came to rest inverted in the jungle. From the picture, it is clear that the landing gear are extended. This provides strong evidence that the initial collision did not incapacitate the 737 pilots nor completely destroy power and control systems on the 737. Most upset recovery procedures include the use of landing gear extension to increase drag (and hence airspeed buildup) during situations such as these and it appears the pilots made their best attempt in a difficult situation.

Our condolences go out to those who lost friends and family in this tradgedy and hope that the final investigation will reduce the likelyhood of future accidents.

Download the PowerPoint File (it does not require MS PowerPoint to view): ALAcidente_da_GOL_Uma_Versao1.pps

Normal Land Takeoff

Other than caring a little power into the flair to account for the high-drag configuration of fixed slats, landings are conventional.

Watch closely and you’ll see that it rolls about the length of 2 runway lights or ~400ft to liftoff

Normal Land Landing

Water Landing Approach and Touchdown

Water landing from final to touchdown.

‘Hover’

The CH-701 power-on stall speed is only 27mph! It is comfortably flown at 40mph with 1/2 flaps and trim. Given a nice winter westerly over the midwest, you can literally stop the 701 for a while by balancing the wind vs the airspeed. Watch the road between the wings struts and you can see our groundspeed is essentially zero. On days like this, it’s a good idea to fly to an upwind practice area so the trip home is the faster leg.

STOL Performance

Our last video shows the full STOL performance of the CH-701 with a sub 400′ takeoff and landing roll. We also include a fly-by which shows the unique nosewheel retraction on this tri-gear float plane.

Distinctive bits of F-14 Lore:

For more reading about the F-14, we invite you to visit the F-14 Reference Work.

PlanePlaces.com Correspondant Larry Z filed the following report and photos on his attendance at MERFI 2006 held at the Marion Municipal Airport (KMRT) in central Ohio:

Wow, what a couple of years and a change of leadership can do. I just came back from the annual MERFI (Mid-Eastern Regional Fly-in) in Marion Ohio. In years past I’ve always been a little disappointed in the communications and services once you’re on the ground there. This year was just a wonderful experience.

I like to fly into Marion on the Friday evening preceding the fly-in and camp. This year I landed our CH-701 and taxied in after a nice flight with a 15 knot tail wind from Piqua Ohio. It was a hazy but pretty evening to fly along at 1200 feet AGL and watch the world go by.

I picked a spot on the show line to park that would be easy to leave from on Saturday about noon as I had other commitments later that day. As soon as I was parked two Gators with three nice people were there to help me. I tied down and one of them was nice enough to drive me over to the camping area with all my stuff. She even offered me a pop out of their cooler. What a nice change from the lack of greeting or information I’d experienced in prior years.

I had a nice evening talking with other early arrivals and then a nice night of sleep broken only a couple of times by trains blowing their horn for the close by railroad crossing. I like the camping area which is close to the runway.

On Saturday morning its fun to just sit in the camp area and watch the inbound planes landing. Unfortunately this Saturday morning it was very hazy with about ¾ mile visibility and clear skies. It was 10 AM or so before airplanes could really start arriving.

Meanwhile I headed up to the hangar where they were cooking the standard airport pancake, eggs and sausage breakfast. But I’ll tell you what! That was the best airport breakfast I’ve ever had.

The eggs were great, the sausage was about the best I could ever remember and the pancakes were a blend, kind of a wheat pancake that I found delicious. And they had hot chocolate. Again, good visiting with other pilots as I enjoyed the hot food. Now I was feeling great.

I looked through the vendor tents and the Jim Bede display then headed out to the flight line. By now airplanes were starting to arrive. The dew was about off my camping gear so I packed it up and loaded the 701. Now I just sat under the wing and talked to people that walked by. The question is always, how does that nose gear retract? If I got five dollars for every answer my son and I have answered on that the 701 could have been paid for that way!

Noon came too soon and after a final walk among the airplanes I headed home, now with a slight head wind. It was another nice flight. Later Saturday afternoon the Thunderstorms hit Piqua so I hope the rest of the weekend went well for those at MERFI. After the enjoyable time I had this year maybe I’ll stay for the weekend next year.

Be sure to check out the rest of Larry’s MERFI photos in our online gallery.