It made a slow low flyover nyc this afternoon. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Actually, it's a Boeing Globemaster III. I remember the Douglas Globemaster II's (MATS) in Albuquerque when I was a kid. (Developed from the Douglas Globemaster.) Never saw an original Douglas Globemaster, they only built a few. (Developed from the DC-4).
The "Boeing" C-17 is 100% Douglas designed and a clever piece of equipment. I'm not certain how much Boeing design technology was transfused after Douglas won the competition but the C-17 is a beautifully done airplane. I had the opportunity to tour and inspect the C-17 when I was working and it is impressive.
I've never seen one in person. 1500 ft for that kind of airplane is pretty....unbelievable! Unimproved strips as well..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azvcf_2NzAY
It was designed by McDonnell Douglas, not Boeing, and had its first flight on 15 Sep 1991 from Long Beach, CA. I was in the control room at Edwards for that and flew over 300 hours on the test aircraft as a Flight Test Engineer. Great airplane that uses blown flaps to essentially vector the engine thrust to provide higher lift and lower approach speeds to get into and out of short fields. I recall one test point on the fuel venting system where we did a tactical descent from 42K feet and reached 25K foot per minute rate of descent with the thrust reversers out in-flight. Felt like we were in the space shuttle coming in on reentry. It is now referred to as a Boeing C-17, after the merger of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas several years ago, just like the Rockwell International B-1B is now the Boeing B-1B, as its merger with Boeing. Lockheed and Martin Marietta merged into Lockheed Martin and Northrop and Grumman merged into Northrop Grumman. But I guess Boeing would not add Rockwell or McDonnell to their name. However, Boeing did adopt the old McDonnell Douglas logo.
Yep, used concepts validated during the AMST prototype development program of the 70's. YC-15 (McDonnell Douglas) vs YC-14 (Boeing). Slightly different concepts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_YC-15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YC-14
I an't remember the year when they started but the 367-80 was modified and flew with the blown flap configuration. I think that it was in the late 60's because i was on a 720-B production test flight and we spotted the -80 below us over the Olympics with a bright white snow background just hovering, or it sure appeared that way. The flap system was made of titanium and stainless steel with all kinds of heavy supports and ducting for the flaps. Most of that junk remained on the -80 along with the modified wing that had an extended Yehudi and a planform approaching the current 747, 767,787. Iv'e mentioned before that there is 2200 pounds of ballast in the -80 nose right now. A few years later I heard a jet over the north end of Lake Washington roaring at 100 % and I ran out to see what was going on and there was the YC-14 hanging there. It couldn't have had a forward speed of more 60mph.
It also has an angle of attack limiter in the flight controls system so you don't get into a deep stall. With the high T tail, the wing can blanket the horizontal tail at high angle of attack, so that the horizontal tail loses effectiveness and the stall cannot be broken (reduce pitch attitude), just keep falling like a leaf. During the testing of the limiter, there was a spin chute on the back and the crew had parachutes and were supposed to bail out through a tunnel. On one occasion, the crew was focused on a flight control problem and inadvertently got into a deep stall and lost 6,000 feet, didn't realize it and recovered when they put the flaps up with front slats out, breaking the stall. The flight test program on that aircraft was fast and furious, with 5 airplanes, and there were some close calls but we never lost an aircraft or crew. In the early 90s during testing, they were ready to cancel the program (like any new program) but it survived and now is considered a great aircraft.
Then you have the idiot in Alaska that thought it was an F-15 not a C-17 [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrngajyaPx4[/ame]
Yes, what a shame. Reminds me of the B-52 accident at Fairchild AFB, WA when a overly aggressive pilot, with a history of hot dogging it, banked the aircraft almost 90 degrees and drove it into the ground during airshow practice.
