Aircrew interview
Discussion
Am sure most of you cold war jet lovers have already found it but a great youtube channel dedicated to talking to ex aircrew from all sorts of eras of the cold war and even fairly current era military airforces.
And most important not just UK, I have watched Finnish, germane, US, Australian stuff, a lot of myth busting going on, and some truly fascinating stuff from people involved directly and now simply enjoying sharing their experiences with geeks like me!
Some particularly great stuff about old analogue planes with maps, limited nav, rudimentary stuff that modern pilots I guess take more for granted
And most important not just UK, I have watched Finnish, germane, US, Australian stuff, a lot of myth busting going on, and some truly fascinating stuff from people involved directly and now simply enjoying sharing their experiences with geeks like me!
Some particularly great stuff about old analogue planes with maps, limited nav, rudimentary stuff that modern pilots I guess take more for granted
ceesvdelst said:
maps, limited nav, rudimentary stuff that modern pilots I guess take more for granted
If another proper war breaks out I expect the first thing to be jammed or switched off is the GPS signal. Do the military use its own special unjammable GPS that can't be used by the enemy, or is it back into the astrodome with a sextant?ceesvdelst said:
Am sure most of you cold war jet lovers have already found it but a great youtube channel dedicated to talking to ex aircrew from all sorts of eras of the cold war and even fairly current era military airforces.
And most important not just UK, I have watched Finnish, germane, US, Australian stuff, a lot of myth busting going on, and some truly fascinating stuff from people involved directly and now simply enjoying sharing their experiences with geeks like me!
Some particularly great stuff about old analogue planes with maps, limited nav, rudimentary stuff that modern pilots I guess take more for granted
Great post.And most important not just UK, I have watched Finnish, germane, US, Australian stuff, a lot of myth busting going on, and some truly fascinating stuff from people involved directly and now simply enjoying sharing their experiences with geeks like me!
Some particularly great stuff about old analogue planes with maps, limited nav, rudimentary stuff that modern pilots I guess take more for granted
I used to work with a couple of the guys in there. I loved flying with them and having conversations like this on the way across the Atlantic etc.
Simpo Two said:
If another proper war breaks out I expect the first thing to be jammed or switched off is the GPS signal. Do the military use its own special unjammable GPS that can't be used by the enemy, or is it back into the astrodome with a sextant?
Interesting question. On one of the last episodes of 'Britain's Biggest Warship', the captain was shown teaching junior officers how to use a sextant and he referenced GPS being taken out as one of the reasons for doing it.Simpo Two said:
If another proper war breaks out I expect the first thing to be jammed or switched off is the GPS signal. Do the military use its own special unjammable GPS that can't be used by the enemy, or is it back into the astrodome with a sextant?
Re. The GPS jamming, the short version is that it won’t be turned off, but the correct signal will be encrypted, and a distorted, inaccurate signal sent to anyone else. It happens around the world a lot already. Whenever if fly a jet to Tel Aviv, some of the surrounding airspace has duff/tampered GPS signals, to the point that the aircraft tells you that the signals aren’t matching the other navigation systems so they are effectively discarded..
Europa1 said:
Simpo Two said:
If another proper war breaks out I expect the first thing to be jammed or switched off is the GPS signal. Do the military use its own special unjammable GPS that can't be used by the enemy, or is it back into the astrodome with a sextant?
Interesting question. On one of the last episodes of 'Britain's Biggest Warship', the captain was shown teaching junior officers how to use a sextant and he referenced GPS being taken out as one of the reasons for doing it.Aircraft I operate have multiple gps, and inertial navigation (accelerometers and gyros) ,and also takes inputs from ground based navigation aids like VOR and DME etc.
There was some GPS jamming going on a few weeks ago over Iran. The aircraft can still navigate fine just that the accuracy of the aircrafts position is slightly less.
O/T Whenever I read these threads I'm left wondering "I wonder if I would've made it as a pilot..?" I passed nearly all the Biggin Hill stuff, even the maths which I don't rate a strength of mine, but flunked on the old hay fever. I learned a lot of the theory, nav and met, and started playing around with Cessnas and Pipers, but then with marriage and career it just wasn't a priority any more.
Maybe I just need to get on and start the PPL thing again
Maybe I just need to get on and start the PPL thing again
Yertis said:
O/T Whenever I read these threads I'm left wondering "I wonder if I would've made it as a pilot..?" I passed nearly all the Biggin Hill stuff, even the maths which I don't rate a strength of mine, but flunked on the old hay fever. I learned a lot of the theory, nav and met, and started playing around with Cessnas and Pipers, but then with marriage and career it just wasn't a priority any more.
Maybe I just need to get on and start the PPL thing again
It’s a fantastic career (or hobby) with a great work life balance (for me anyway). I would have found it much harder to get into if I had children or financial responsibilities though. I meet plenty of pilots doing it as a second career, they often tell stories about how they were working for a while and went home and told their wife they wanted to give up their stable Job and spend loads of money training for something with no guarantee of a job at the end of it. Pretty brave really, I only had myself to worry about. Maybe I just need to get on and start the PPL thing again
Presumably if you don’t mean as a job though you could get into gliding or do your ppl or something similar?
El stovey said:
It’s a fantastic career (or hobby) with a great work life balance (for me anyway). I would have found it much harder to get into if I had children or financial responsibilities though. I meet plenty of pilots doing it as a second career, they often tell stories about how they were working for a while and went home and told their wife they wanted to give up their stable Job and spend loads of money training for something with no guarantee of a job at the end of it. Pretty brave really, I only had myself to worry about.
Presumably if you don’t mean as a job though you could get into gliding or do your ppl or something similar?
I've done a bit of gliding but you have to spend a huge amount of time on site for not much in the way of actual aviation. I think PPL or similar is the way forward, I've been looking at doing it in a Tiger Moth (which I can do quite close by here). I met a chap the other day – selling him some spare Quattro parts – who'd given up the 9–5 here to fly freight around the far east in what sound like clapped-out airliners. I didn't even know you could do such a thing (ie make that career move).Presumably if you don’t mean as a job though you could get into gliding or do your ppl or something similar?
From what I could tell the men in these interviews are very driven, very selfish and all had a clear goal, either to fly Lightnings or be fast jet or helicopters etc.
The training sounds difficult and very easy to fall foul of, so you need to be a certain sort of person, they all come across differently, some are typical arrogant winners, some clearly just hard working chaps with a talent, some are a real mixture.
But it seemed to me the real top guys were the normal ones, without that "red Arrows" arrogance who flew first flights in squadron, went on to be instructors etc.
I always though of most as being like Andy Green who is a great man but comes across as well just typical RAF, and there are a lot like him yes, but not all.
Refreshingly too there are a lot of non career types it was just a job, a tough job, a job of defending our country, holding a responsible position and dealing with some truly awful tech at times, when you listen to Shack pilots of Phantom pilots or even early Jag pilots talking about what they had to do to in sorties it's staggering the level you can get to with the right training and attitude.
The training sounds difficult and very easy to fall foul of, so you need to be a certain sort of person, they all come across differently, some are typical arrogant winners, some clearly just hard working chaps with a talent, some are a real mixture.
But it seemed to me the real top guys were the normal ones, without that "red Arrows" arrogance who flew first flights in squadron, went on to be instructors etc.
I always though of most as being like Andy Green who is a great man but comes across as well just typical RAF, and there are a lot like him yes, but not all.
Refreshingly too there are a lot of non career types it was just a job, a tough job, a job of defending our country, holding a responsible position and dealing with some truly awful tech at times, when you listen to Shack pilots of Phantom pilots or even early Jag pilots talking about what they had to do to in sorties it's staggering the level you can get to with the right training and attitude.
Yertis said:
I've done a bit of gliding but you have to spend a huge amount of time on site for not much in the way of actual aviation. I think PPL or similar is the way forward, I've been looking at doing it in a Tiger Moth (which I can do quite close by here). I met a chap the other day – selling him some spare Quattro parts – who'd given up the 9–5 here to fly freight around the far east in what sound like clapped-out airliners. I didn't even know you could do such a thing (ie make that career move).
There is at least one person in Britain who was a doctor (a GP) and then in her fifties became a first officer with BA. Admittedly that's leaving it a bit late.Dr Jekyll said:
Yertis said:
I've done a bit of gliding but you have to spend a huge amount of time on site for not much in the way of actual aviation. I think PPL or similar is the way forward, I've been looking at doing it in a Tiger Moth (which I can do quite close by here). I met a chap the other day – selling him some spare Quattro parts – who'd given up the 9–5 here to fly freight around the far east in what sound like clapped-out airliners. I didn't even know you could do such a thing (ie make that career move).
There is at least one person in Britain who was a doctor (a GP) and then in her fifties became a first officer with BA. Admittedly that's leaving it a bit late.Funnily enough my best mate failed all his A levels due to wasting (or not depending on your viewpoint) his teen years on very nearly getting into the Olympic shooting team. A few years after I became an RAF pilot myself (hopefully not one of the arrogant ones described above 
) he remortgaged his house, got his frozen ATPL and somehow got a job with BMI Baby after the Sep 11 attacks crippled the industry. Subsequently he found his way to Etihad after losing his job with BMI Baby and now a 787/777 Captain....I’m very proud of him too....living the dream 
Back OT Aircrew Interview is a really good series and some of the more exotic interviewees have been fascinating. I wrote to Mike from Aircrew Interview a while ago and rather surprisingly he was keen to interview me too.....but I got cold feet as my experiences don’t really compare much with many of his interviews and have parked it for now. A few friends I’ve flown with have done interviews with him and have explained things way better than I could....one day
) he remortgaged his house, got his frozen ATPL and somehow got a job with BMI Baby after the Sep 11 attacks crippled the industry. Subsequently he found his way to Etihad after losing his job with BMI Baby and now a 787/777 Captain....I’m very proud of him too....living the dream Back OT Aircrew Interview is a really good series and some of the more exotic interviewees have been fascinating. I wrote to Mike from Aircrew Interview a while ago and rather surprisingly he was keen to interview me too.....but I got cold feet as my experiences don’t really compare much with many of his interviews and have parked it for now. A few friends I’ve flown with have done interviews with him and have explained things way better than I could....one day
Gassing Station | Boats, Planes & Trains | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff