bSr.LCsta

----- Addendum from John: To be honest, I am INSULTED to think two pilots who were in my previous line of work could be as cumulatively STUPID as these two were! So what if they couldn't communicate with each other? They demonstrated that they were incapable of THINKING in the first place! Talking was not their biggest problem. They were an embarrassment to professional pilots everywhere. I think they should both be entered in this year's 'Darwin Awards' competition. They've got a fair chance of winning. Unfortunately, while doing their noble part to cleanse the gene pool, they had to take quite a few innocents with them! That's the very sad part. Just for the record and to make things crystal clear, the pilots have an oxygen system which is *entirely* separate and a completely different design than the oxygen system which is provided for passengers and flight attendants. In addition, flight attendants have access to portable, emergency, oxygen bottles, located around the cabin in various lockers to be used, for example, when fighting fires and smoke. So, here's what I think happened: The bottom line is that the pilots (using no supplemental oxygen at any time) probably lapsed into unconsciousness first. Then the passengers would follow 30 minutes later, since that is the certified amount of time their kind of masks will provide oxygen. Finally, the flight attendants would be last, since they would have supplemental oxygen bottles to breathe from after their 'passenger-style' oxygen was all used up. All three categories would, in order, simply lapse into unconsciousness, like fainting or going to sleep at some point. Some minutes later - while still unconscious - their hearts would simply give out due to oxygen deprivation - and die *painlessly*, since they were still "asleep" in a manner of speaking. Hours would pass while the fuel was all used up. Though the plane certainly made a loud bang and a big hole when it hit the ground, all the people inside had died a long time earlier. And there would be little or no fire. When I first heard about this event and before reading or hearing about any published accident investigation results, establishing the cause of the accident, which this article does now, I guessed the *only* way both pilots could be incapacitated, via hypoxia - lack of oxygen - would be if the First Officer/Copilot *failed* to manually open the oxygen bottle's valve prior to flight as he is certainly supposed to do. This oxygen bottle is located on his side, the extreme right side of the cockpit and far away from the Captain's visual or manual access. Otherwise, if the oxygen bottle valve *was* open, even if one pilot somehow screwed up during some pressurization emergency, the other would still continue to have access to oxygen - and remain alive - and fly the plane. That's why I felt the valve being closed was the only answer. Even the exotic idea of a terrorist smuggling a nerve gas agent onto the airplane, say in a hair spray can, and discharging same likely wouldn't work. Some passenger cabin air IS recirculated, but only back into the passenger cabin, not into the cockpit. The cockpit gets "new" air in almost all cases, unless that -300 model is different than other 737's. Of course, in addition to that setup scenario-fault, a pressurization problem would also have to occur. If a rapid, high altitude depressurization took place (very rare, but possible), and if both pilots *believed* the valve had been opened - as it should have, they might then don their masks and righteously *assume* they were getting oxygen, but in fact were not. Without the valve open, they were getting only ambient air - at ambient (high altitude) air pressure into their oxygen masks. That is useless and won't sustain consciousness - or life - at 35,000 feet. At that altitude, you might have 30 seconds of useful consciousness - or even much less, depending upon your age and fitness and the rate of depressurization. IF neither of the pilots discovered in that short amount of time they were *not* getting oxygen for some reason - and retained the presence of mind to check (and then open) the valve on the bottle, they're cooked. Toast. End of story. Even that scenario is a bit of a stretch for multiple reasons; not least of which because the default "standby" switch position on each pilot's Oxygen Control Panel is always to have 100% oxygen selected (as opposed to a mixture of oxygen and ambient air, as necessary and the percentage of which depends upon measured cabin altitude.) With oxygen panel controls (a separate one exists for each pilot) set properly, if the oxygen valve itself were *closed*, each pilot would not be able to 'draw' or breathe air while their oxygen masks were on. The mask would be sealed and nothing would get in; even ambient air. In the event of a pressurization emergency, the first pilot to get his mask on would instantly start yelling about 'opening that damned valve!' as their automatic response. In any case, each mask *should* be tested on the ground, prior to a flight. That also would be another huge 'clue' to the pilots that the valve was still closed. So, the only theoretical explanation I could conjur to explain what happened seemed flawed, too. It never occured to me that another plausible reason could exist - since pilots would catch any other kind of failure, wouldn't they? But, obviously, a valve left closed was *not* THE cause in this case. The 'setup' for the accident was faulty maintenance. O.K. That happens - and is not all that rare. Pressurization problems happen. Maintenance people sometimes make mistakes, but the pilots are paid well to detect and correct such errors in 'real time' - at any time. It so happens that I had an extremely similar thing happen to me when taking off from Los Angeles one day. As I was passing through about 5,000 feet, I somehow "sensed" that the aircraft was not pressurizing properly. I'm no genius or clairvoyant, so I'm not bragging, but it just didn't "feel" right, so I looked up at the cabin pressurization gauges overhead and saw the cabin altitude was the same as our aircraft's altitude; and there was no pressure differential building between inside and outside of the aircraft. So, I immediately requested a 'level off' altitude at 5,000 feet. The Altitude Warning Horn never got to sound off. No red lights lit. No masks dropped. No emergency took place. We took action *before* reaching 10,000 feet! We cruised around off shore, talked with our Los Angeles maintenance people, took some corrective actions to correct a maintenance screwup, and the plane started pressurizing as it was supposed to. And we then climbed and flew on to our destination. No biggie. I doubt our passengers ever knew anything was going on.

Interesting read from a pilot friend of mine...... The following text comes from emails sent between some pilots who sent these photos to each other. I am including the text here as it is interesting although it is the opinion of the writers only and does not reflect any official finding that I know of. Still it is very interesting The emails: Got this from a friend, thought it interesting. Included are some shots of the F-16s that went up to see what was going on. Sad to think that when the pictures were taken all on the plane were either already dead, or about to be. I just can not believe 2 pilots would make so many fatal mistakes. Notice the sequence of events that caused this plane to eventually crash near Athens on August 14th. The plane was a 737-300 and was in LNAV (lateral Navigation) VNAV (Vertical Navigation) and the altitude alerter was sent to 34000. The autopilot performed as it was supposed to until the electrical power failed due to fuel starvation. The pilots and everyone else were unconscious and I presume dead by the time this all happened and the plane entered a graveyard spiral and quickly thereafter impacted the planet Earth in Greece. The two pilots ignored the cabin altitude warning siren, MASTER WARNING, cabin pressurization RED Light and the Oxygen masks dropped and they thought it was the Takeoff Configuration Warning (Were you on the runway, you IDIOT!!) and the Capt called Maintenance Control and was out of his seat busily trying to pull the C/B to silence the horn. The FO didn't speak his language (German) and neither of them spoke English enough to communicate with each other; but, hey, I'll bet they worked CHEAP !!! Cockpit Confusion Found in Crash of Cypriot Plane By DON PHILLIPS, "International Herald Tribune" Published: September 7, 2005 PARIS, Sept. 6 - The crew members of a Cypriot airliner that crashed Aug. 14 near Athens became confused by a series of alarms as the plane climbed, failing to recognize that the cabin was not pressurizing until they grew mentally disoriented because of lack of oxygen and lost consciousness, according to several people connected with the investigation into the crash. Complicating the cockpit confusion, neither the German pilot nor the young, inexperienced Cypriot co-pilot could speak the same language fluently, and each had difficulty understanding the other's English, the worldwide language of air traffic control. A total of 121 people were killed in the crash after the plane climbed and flew on autopilot, circling near Athens until one engine stopped running because of a lack of fuel. The sudden imbalance of power, with only one engine operating, caused the autopilot to disengage and the plane to begin to fall. So far, the Greek authorities have hinted at oxygen problems, but have not announced the full findings of investigators. The people interviewed for this article agreed to speak only on the condition that they not be identified because none are official spokesmen for the investigation and because of political sensitivities arising from a Cypriot plane's crashing in Greece. Investigators pieced together the story of the crash from many sources. In the wreckage, they found the first solid clues: the pressurization valve and an air outflow valve set incorrectly. Air traffic control tapes provided information on the confusion in the cockpit. The plane had a sophisticated new flight data recorder that provided a wealth of information. There were maintenance records from the night before, and investigators interviewed the mechanics who worked on the plane. Among other things, the investigators determined that the pilot was not in his seat because he was up trying to solve a problem that turned out to be one of the lesser threats facing the plane. The plane that crashed, a Boeing 737-300, underwent maintenance the night before. The maintenance crew apparently left pressurization controller rotary knob out of place, according to the officials connected to the investigation, and the crew did not catch the mistake during preflight checks the next day. This meant that the plane could not pressurize properly. At 10,000 feet, an alarm went off to warn the crew that the plane would not pressurize. Crew members mistakenly thought that the alarm horn was a warning to tell them that their controls were not set properly for takeoff, the officials said. The same horn is used for both conditions, although it will sound for takeoff configuration only while the plane is still on the ground. The climb continued on autopilot. At 14,000 feet, oxygen masks deployed as designed, and a master caution light illuminated in the cockpit. Another alarm sounded at about the same time on an unrelated matter, warning that there was insufficient cooling air in the compartment housing avionics equipment. The radio tapes showed that this created tremendous confusion in the cockpit. Normally, an aircraft cabin is held at 8,000 feet pressure, so the crew at over 14,000 feet would already be experiencing some disorientation because of a lack of oxygen. During this time, the captain and co-pilot discovered that they had no common language and that their English was not good enough for the complicated technical conversation required to fix the problem. The crew members called the maintenance base in Cyprus and were told that the circuit breaker to turn off the loud new alarm was in a cabinet behind the captain. The captain got up from his seat to look for the circuit breaker, apparently ignoring the confused co-pilot. As the plane continued to climb on autopilot, the air grew so thin that the crew became seriously impaired. The captain lost consciousness first on the floor of the cockpit, followed by the co-pilot, who remained in his seat, according to the officials. The autopilot did as it was programmed to do, flying the plane at 34,000 feet to Athens and entering a holding pattern. It remained in a long circling pattern, shadowed by Greek military jets, until fuel ran low and one engine quit. Boeing, the maker of the plane, issued a notice shortly after the crash to airlines that it would revise flight crew training manuals to emphasize to crews that they must understand how the various warning systems work and what to do about them. The notice emphasizes that the takeoff configuration warning horn will not sound under any circumstances after the plane has left the ground. The same horn will then be used only for a cabin altitude warning. The company notice said there had been other instances of confusion over the horn by pilots. "Confusion between the cabin altitude warning horn and the takeoff configuration warning horn can be resolved if the crew remembers that the takeoff configuration warning horn is only armed when the airplane is on the ground," the notice said. "If this horn is activated in flight, it indicates that the cabin altitude has reached 10,000 feet." (continued next post......)

still works in the MIG havent tried the 33 though

Swing.....What maneuvers did you perform? Iguana......Yes that shot as well as the panoramic were taken from the Hotel St. Pete, which is just across a small canal from the naval academy, and across the main canal from the city. I don't recall the street name.

***Edit*** I dont' know anthing.... In the game, use "F" type for transport and soft targets, and "B" for armor targets. I have not tried them on the runway, but seeing as the game code has it so even the smallest damage to runways will result in AI not taking off, I am sure either would work.

good vid GA, I really like the look of the city scenes. Nice colors!

Is the landing gear also part of these hydrolics? If so why does the gear always drop anyway? I can understand not being able to retract with a hydrolics failure.

right, I don't think it was hook related. I am wondering about the senerio of a Su-33 coming in for a landing on the Kuz and not being able to deploy arrestor hook for WHATEVER reason. If they are low on fuel, damaged, or too far out to reach another airfield, do they: a) Send another plane up to refuel (33 to 33 refuel like in the video) and escort back to a land base. b) Have some sort of net set up on the deck to catch the plane. C) Belly land w/o gear. D) Eject and lose the A/C. E) Something else???

Hehe good point :P, I meant ANY RL hook failures not necessarily combat related.

if you are talking about "O" for EOS you will see a "T" in the left side of the HUD (if using russian HUD) and a horizontal line across the center of the HUD. This means the EOS system is on. Remember that you will not rec'v IFF info in this mode. The ECM light in the MIG is on the right panel of green lights, left row just above the 2 manual flight control lights.

Thanks for the reply Yo-Yo :) !!! This seems strange too me? Are there any RL cases of Su-33 hook failures, and what they did as a result?

Sorry Swing, I had forgot to post to your last questions....:P 1. You are probably right about the SAM, I didn't catch the # on it. 2a. The mirrors seemed as useful as they are in LOMAC :P I didn't fold down the forward mirror to see ahead, but the rear mirrors didn't provide much view at all. 2b. I remember 3 things the pilot pointed to and told me not to touch.... 1. Ejection handles 2. Not sure what it was, but it was down by my left shin. (also painted red) 3. Not sure what it was, but it was near the A/G weapons controls on the left panel. (also painted red) 3. The feeling of afterburners is just pure power! I was giggling like a schoolgirl on take off and when we pushed up to supersonic. You can hear the burners kick in, as well as feel additional vibrations through out the A/C. 4. Yes the cabin pressure and comms (which were hot the whole flight) were the dominant sounds, but you could feel the engines. I honestly can't remember if I could hear them or not? Something I found very interesting was when coming out of burner it felt like hitting the brakes in a car and going from 60-0mph on a small off-ramp. 5. During the suit fitting I sat in front of a mirror with the O2 mask on and practiced putting it on and taking it off. It is completely detachable on both sides and then there are additional tighteners to fit it securely. I could loosen the mask and remove one side in about 2 secs. Putting it back on w/o the mirror was a bit harder. There was an airsickness bag wedged into a metal slot by my right knee. It was very convenient :) 6. Yes the working of "G-suit" was very obvious. It tightened to some degree with all G increases. 7. I felt the most discomfort in my eyes if you can believe it, after that it was my chest. I don't think I tried to move too much at 5.5g’s; I was more thinking "Holy shit! I hope I don’t black out!" Yes the plane was vibrating if I remember correctly. 8. None of the combat related features were operational. 9. We started with just over 3000 and ended up at about 900. I think we were in AB for about 4-5 min total when you combine everything. 10. We performed the following maneuvers...... Aileron rolls left, and right. Double aileron left Knife-edge left 50degree climb in AB Various left and right banks from 30-90 degrees Vertical loop at 5.5g's Tail slide Mach 1.2 *Officially I was told they no longer perform the cobra because it is too hard on the airframe :?, but unofficially I was told that too many people were blacking out. Not sure which is correct but we did not do it :( The pilot was very cool, and his English was sufficient.

hijackers!!! A video of the Su-25T landing on the carrier came out before the add-on did. That is nothing new. You can NOT land the SU-33 on the carrier w/o gear and hook working properly. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong.... Can a dev respond to this issue of the hook?

Since v1.1 I can't believe how often I rec'v damage to my plane resulting in my hook not working :( I can understand if it were to take direct fire it could be shot off, but it seems that almost any hits taken in the rear 1/2 of the plane will reslut in a hook failure. Shouldn't this be one of the most fail-safe features of a plane operating off a carrier? If nothing more wouldn't gravity act a secondary method of deployment. Can someone explain how this works IRL and what the emergency proceedures would be if there was a problem? p.s. I know that ALL the naval aspects in LOMAC/successor need to be seriously upgraded, and am patiently waiting for that ;) However, the hook issue is new to v1.1 and might not be to hard to fix. I miss night traps on the Kuz in a storm with 1 wing and no engines :P Any info would be appreciated.

excellent high speed passes!!!

"Lock On Dogfight" by Tigrou is sweet! Also "Viper Drivers" by Rugg, and "Splash6" by me.

ROFL thats good.

very good idea. I think all the climate settings need to be upgraded, as soon as possible. When/if this is done, please make sure that the AI can compensate. Currently most AI will either crash or never land when the wind and turbulance is strong (especially on the carrier). Another thing that would be nice is to see the contrail effected by temperature. Currently there is a 4000m "no fly zone" between 8000-12000m where the contrail ALWAYS appears. Shouldn't this be effected by temp? At least the option to scale the parameters would be nice.

Not exactly........Last cake we had, Rugg popped out himself in a American flag g-string bikini, singing "Happy birthday Mr. President." We lost several members that day :P

VERY NICE 27 secs of footage! ;)

these are awesome!!!

A couple more pics, and also posted links to the the MIG-29OVT, and Su-30MK performance vids under their respective photos. (these vids are currently hosted at a very slow speed, on another website so some might have seen them, but if not make sure to grab it while its up, they are truely amazing!) I believe these vids were taken on friday which is the same day I took the most pics. You can see the similar views between the vid and my Su-30MK shots. B1-B Rolling... Ka-50 and Ka-52 Sukhoi 3 Ship take off MIG-29OVT Take-off. MIG-29OVT Windmill maneuver. (notice the smoke trail) Mirage 2000D Russian Knights hard bank 1 Russian Knights hard bank 2. Su-27SK Tailslide seq 1 Su-27SK Tailslide seq 2 Su-27SK Tailslide Su-30MK Knife's edge Su-30MK Inbound for landing. Swifts flare burst

LMAO!!!!

Oh yeah, almost forgot....

The ladder ;) I think it would be easier to answer a specific question than try and explain the experience in a un-just summary. The things that stood out were: 1. Physical movement in the jet was very limited. (I'm not sure if all pilots are strapped in as tight as I was, but I did not have the ability to move like we have seen in some of those videos like archer123, or Eagle rage. I was not able to see the chase plane until he was at my 3o'clock. 2. Eagle did a very good job modeling the cockpits! 3. Going afterburner's is one of the coolest feelings in the world! 4. Supersonic flight is fairly uneventful as it is in Lockon. I did notice a sense of silence like in the game, but it was not that pronounced. (Hopefully the dash-cam caught a vapor cloud form as we broke the sound barrier.) 5. I have a pretty strong stomach when it comes to physical forces, but it definately didn't like the 1st aleron roll. I hadn't eaten much, so after puking up a little water, and taking a 30sec breather I was fine for the rest of the flight. Something I would be able to get used to, but would take a bit. Also aside from manuevers, even when just flying you are constantly moving between -.1 or -.2 g's up to +.2 or +.3 g's s. This also creates a bit of a butterfly sensation. 6. The G-suit is nice to were and is extremly helpful. It has airtubes running through it, and is conected to the plane by a pneumatic fitting. As the plane pulls g's the suit automatically fills with air, and squeezes your lower body to help keep your blood in your upper body. The speed and pressure of which the suit fills is dependent to the amount of g's and how fast they are pulled. (ex: With a slow loop that gradually increase the g's, the suit will slow fill accordingly. With a fast pitch or bank that would generate a quick spike of g's, the suit would fill very quickly to match the AC's maneuvers.) 7. G's do not feel that good once you pass about 3.5. I'm sure with training it becomes very managable, but I don't think you would ever say "I like pulling 7+ g's. 8. I have flown in many commercial jetliners, but even just looking out over landscape seemed different. MIG-29 UB Which is a 2 seat trainer. I was in the back seat, which unfortunately did not have and working MFD or a HUD :( The piece of equipment in the upper right was some sort of old navigation device, but it did not work. You can also see the camera mount. Yes, but it will be some time before I recv it. I didn't go for the beer so this was not a problem for me, and that also helped me to avoid dealing with your second issue ;) The anouncers were funny, and everyone was laughing at the english interpreter cause he sucked. lol. (his best line is at the end of the MIG-29OVT flight on friday, "The flight demonstration for MIG-29OVT has been concluded, I would like to ask him to congratulate the crowd!") As for enough flights the performance started at 11:30am and ended after 4pm each day. To me this seemed like alot, but I have not been to many airshows, and never to one in Russia, so I am not a good judge. I enjoyed myself greatly and to see the planes from Lockon IRL was very cool. Brit is correct. The left gauge is the alpha and the right is the G meter. I found it difficult to take pictures during maneuvers, as the camera (and my arm) started to get a bit heavy, so this pic was taken later on, but the small needle shows the max g limit reached for the flight, and the large is the current load. Both were at 1 when we took off. A few more pics... Sergay (sp?) Test pilot of the Russian Federation. Nice guy, and he spoke some english. Getting seated. In flight. Post flight