irrational fear of flying

[monadnocky]

Heard a plane pass over a few days ago (I'm in central New Hampshire). Quite loud. It was pretty low for some reason, so you could clearly see four underwing engines. I assumed it was a 747 cargo coming out of MHT (does that happen?) but it looked... well, odd. Stumpier than a 747. A quick check of Flight Aware revealed it to be one of these big guys. I've never seen an An-124 before. Apparently it was at Pease (used to be an air base, now a civilian airport at the NH seacoast). I wonder why it was there?

Антонов_Ан-124_9773054055093,_М&#108.jpg

Do current US-Russia tensions impact contracting these fellas?

[bigbill]

There are a handful of Anatovs in the world that belong to charter companies to deliver large items. Fun fact, their cargo holds aren't pressurized. A decade or so ago, the Army contracted an Anatov to move a bunch of helicopters across the Pacific. Helicopters don't fly at 35K+ altitudes but the Anatov does. Most of the helicopters had damaged instrumentation.

[monadnocky]

There are a handful of Anatovs in the world that belong to charter companies to deliver large items. Fun fact, their cargo holds aren't pressurized. A decade or so ago, the Army contracted an Anatov to move a bunch of helicopters across the Pacific. Helicopters don't fly at 35K+ altitudes but the Anatov does. Most of the helicopters had damaged instrumentation.

I know that they can be pretty instrumental in disaster relief and delivering very large cargoes (huge water pumps, crane assemblies, and so forth) in addition to military stuff. Love to know what it was delivering to a relatively small airfield in New Hampshire.

[72gmc]

I'm guessing an An-124 is pretty darn loud. Do they retrofit planes like this for noise and emissions? Or just grandfather them in and let 'em fly?

bigbill, I concur with other comments here, I'd ride around with you just to hear you say "I can't tell you that" repeatedly and then tell me again about the time you kicked a fish. Thanks for sharing what you do.

[gregl]

Snip:

I'm guessing an An-124 is pretty darn loud. Do they retrofit planes like this for noise and emissions? Or just grandfather them in and let 'em fly?

According to this air cargo charter site, the AN-124s were updated to meet current ICAO noise requirements. I have no idea how they currently operate outside of Russia with the sanctions imposed due to the war in Ukraine.

Greg

[BBB]

Good point about the sanctions. It appeared the Canadians seized a similar aircraft in 2022.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...a-volga-dnepr/

[Saab2000]

There are a handful of Anatovs in the world that belong to charter companies to deliver large items. Fun fact, their cargo holds aren't pressurized. A decade or so ago, the Army contracted an Anatov to move a bunch of helicopters across the Pacific. Helicopters don't fly at 35K+ altitudes but the Anatov does. Most of the helicopters had damaged instrumentation.

When I worked at Zurich, I met the crews of many of these airplanes and learned some fascinating things. I was a student pilot at the time and a sponge for all things aviation. They were eager to explain when they learned I was learning to fly. This was all civilian stuff. No military connection on my end. This was in the late 1990s.

IIRC, the fuselage/cargo hold can in fact be pressurized but then they are severely limited in maximum altitude and their fuel burn is significantly higher. The flight deck of this airplane is enormous, with room for a dozen people working at various stations. The non-flying crew (cargo handlers, etc.) fly in a pressurized compartment in the rear of the airplane, that looks more like a barracks than an airplane cabin.

The tensions between these nations is unfortunate because most of the folks I met when working at ZRH from Russia and other places we don’t interact with as much in the west were lovely people and wanted to be friendly and learn about us too. I was fortunate to be in a place that existed as a bit of a middle point between worlds.

[bigbill]

The tensions between these nations is unfortunate because most of the folks I met when working at ZRH from Russia and other places we don’t interact with as much in the west were lovely people and wanted to be friendly and learn about us too. I was fortunate to be in a place that existed as a bit of a middle point between worlds.

All my dealings with Russian military members have been great. When I was stationed at Pearl Harbor, we would occasionally get a Russian ship during some kind of exercise. The ships were Soviet era rust buckets but the sailors are sailors. This one time, I had a watertight door in the back of my shipyard truck that I brought to the weld shop for repairs. My guys fabricated and welded on a new hinge. I helped the Russian sailors rehang the door and had a shot of vodka on the pier before I headed back to my office. Their ships are nasty, all the bulkheads have a yellow tint from nicotine. All things considered, I enjoyed working with the Australians more than the Russians.

[Bewheels]

Heard a plane pass over a few days ago (I'm in central New Hampshire). Quite loud. It was pretty low for some reason, so you could clearly see four underwing engines. I assumed it was a 747 cargo coming out of MHT (does that happen?) but it looked... well, odd. Stumpier than a 747. A quick check of Flight Aware revealed it to be one of these big guys. I've never seen an An-124 before. Apparently it was at Pease (used to be an air base, now a civilian airport at the NH seacoast). I wonder why it was there?

Антонов_Ан-124_9773054055093,_М&#108.jpg

Do current US-Russia tensions impact contracting these fellas?

I don't have a direct answer however, I lived on the NH coast up until 3 years ago, and my office was on the decommissioned Peace base. Our office building was about 1/2 of a mile from the actual runway. A lot of large aircraft training exercises take place there. Touch and goes, midair refueling, etc. It is conceivable that it was there for training and was coming out of Pease when you saw it, considering it is not too far from MHT.

Fun fact - The Peace base was considered a backup landing site for the space shuttle because the runway is 2 miles long.

Fun fact 2 - They used to hold an annual airshow at Pease. The Thunderbirds and Blue Angles would rotate through on different years. I never attended the actual shows because I didn't have to. The different acts would start practicing a few days before the show to get used to the airspace and they used our building as one of the touch points (almost literally). If we had a meeting during their practice times, I would have to tell whoever was on the other end of the video, "This better be highly interesting/important to keep our attention. Otherwise reschedule. You are competing with jet fighters showing off outside our windows".

Fun fact 3 - The Pease base is/was on the list of Superfund sites. The water for the base, and business tradeport the base became after it was decommissioned, comes from on-base wells which were highly contaminated from decades of dumping jet fuel, solvents, paint stripers, etc into the ground . I am sure this is why I am bald on top and ride much slower now.

[monadnocky]

... aaand the An-124 just went over my house again. Such a distinctive noise. Actively tracking it on Flightradar to see where it goes - again, it came out of the Pease airport, again.
So curious what they're up to.

Update: the website booted me off right as the flight was over the general NYC area, and I'll never re-aquire it with the hundreds of flights shown.
Oh well. It remains a mystery.

[monadnocky]

... aaand the An-124 just went over my house again. Such a distinctive noise. Actively tracking it on Flightradar to see where it goes - again, it came out of the Pease airport, again.
So curious what they're up to.

Update: the website booted me off right as the flight was over the general NYC area, and I'll never re-aquire it with the hundreds of flights shown.
Oh well. It remains a mystery.

Update to the previous update: Found it. It is heading to Mobile, Alabama of all places. How odd.

[bigbill]

My son aced all his instrument simulators, so he'll do a cross-country flight in the next few weeks. When he flies, he is alone, with no instructor. He is trying to figure out a route with three legs in each direction with airports having a government contract for fuel and support. At the end of the outbound legs, he'll get to spend the weekend before flying back on Monday.

[Mabouya]

Sometimes I see single military jets landing or taking off from SUS (Spirit Airport, just west of St Louis MO) so I assume they have a contract for that.

https://www.spiritairport.com/

If he does go through there, he might fly relatively close to my house.

Some other guys who stop by every now and then: (not my house in the background)

[vertical_doug]

Good point about the sanctions. It appeared the Canadians seized a similar aircraft in 2022.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...a-volga-dnepr/

OFAC and Sanctions are complex, but things are not sanctioned. It is the owner when it is a legal entity or individual on the list, that is sanctioned, and then the item is unable to transact in dollars, so becomes stranded. The issue is for you to comply with sanctions you cannot pay or receive funds from a sanction entity without a waiver. If you owned an old russian tank or plane prior to sanctions, you can do whatever you want with it. There are specialty fire fighting aircraft from Russia which are used all over the world.

There is a Czech Defense contractor who specialized in repairing and modifying Russian equipment. Since sanctions went into effect against Russian Military contractors, the czechs are the only legal game in town who can repair old russian equipment. The owners have become billionaires since the war started.

[j44ke]

OFAC and Sanctions are complex, but things are not sanctioned. It is the owner when it is a legal entity or individual on the list, that is sanctioned, and then the item is unable to transact in dollars, so becomes stranded. The issue is for you to comply with sanctions you cannot pay or receive funds from a sanction entity without a waiver. If you owned an old russian tank or plane prior to sanctions, you can do whatever you want with it. There are specialty fire fighting aircraft from Russia which are used all over the world.

There is a Czech Defense contractor who specialized in repairing and modifying Russian equipment. Since sanctions went into effect against Russian Military contractors, the czechs are the only legal game in town who can repair old russian equipment. The owners have become billionaires since the war started.

This is a classic Czech business. Keeping engines going is their forte. There are so many nice machine shops in garages in Czechia. Everyone’s dad is making something crazy. We visited a friend whose dad had a go-cart with a huge engine in it. I asked him where he got the very interesting looking seat for it. MiG he said. I thought he was joking. He was not joking.

Glad to see they are making money.

[bigbill]

Sometimes I see single military jets landing or taking off from SUS (Spirit Airport, just west of St Louis MO) so I assume they have a contract for that.

https://www.spiritairport.com/

If he does go through there, he might fly relatively close to my house.

Some other guys who stop by every now and then: (not my house in the background)

One of the jet training bases is in Meridian, MS, so it would make sense that the students would fly to smaller fields like the one near St Louis.

[bigbill]

Bud Anderson died yesterday at 103 years of age. He was a triple ace in World War II, a test pilot, and flew chase planes when Yeager was breaking records, and wrote a fascinating book To Fly and Fight. Jocko Willink did a three-hour podcast with Bud a few years ago.

[BBB]

OFAC and Sanctions are complex, but things are not sanctioned. It is the owner when it is a legal entity or individual on the list, that is sanctioned, and then the item is unable to transact in dollars, so becomes stranded. The issue is for you to comply with sanctions you cannot pay or receive funds from a sanction entity without a waiver. If you owned an old russian tank or plane prior to sanctions, you can do whatever you want with it. There are specialty fire fighting aircraft from Russia which are used all over the world.

There is a Czech Defense contractor who specialized in repairing and modifying Russian equipment. Since sanctions went into effect against Russian Military contractors, the czechs are the only legal game in town who can repair old russian equipment. The owners have become billionaires since the war started.

Thanks!

The legal entity in this case would be Volga-Dnepr Airlines, which is a Russian company. I would have thought one of its assets (ie the plane) would have been covered by the sanctions. It seems it wasn't just the Canadians that confiscated the Antonov, with 4 out of the 10 planes owned by Volga-Dnepr Airlines being confiscated.

[BBB]

4 out of the 10 Antonovs that is.

[AngryScientist]

I assume most have seen the news story of the deadly turbulence on the London>Singapore. One dead and 71 injured.

This must have been some severe turbulence. Question to the pilots in the group: How did this happen? I would assume modern instrumentation would keep you out of such severe disturbances. What went wrong?

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/21/world...kok/index.html