How Much Runway Do you Need?

This amazing video shows two aircraft in Alaska, one taking-off in  a very very short distance and another aircraft landing in a similar distance. Who needs runways when you can takeoff from a parking lot .

Balls Of Steels: Emergency Landing

POLK COUNTY (Bay News 9) — The Sun ‘n Fun Fly-In starts today and already there were some tense moments in the sky for a pilot headed to the event.The pilot, Kyle Davis, 22, and his passenger, Joe Surowiec, were flying from Winter Haven to Lakeland Sunday when they experienced engine failure.Realizing the engine wouldn’t cooperate, Davis was able to land the homemade plane safely on Havendale Boulevard.”The options for me were land on the road or land on the lake,” Davis said.Davis is a part-time flight instructor with 1,300 hours in the skies. His own flight instructor, John Amundsen, calls his roadway landing, incredible.”Watching that video, he was just awesome,” Amundsen said. “I just hope, you know, if I ever have a situation like that I can be as cool as Kyle was.”No injuries were reported.Sunday’s incident didn’t scare Davis away from the skies. He plans to fly his own plane to the Sun ‘n Fun Fly-In later this week.It’s unknown what caused the engine failure.

It’s awesome how he got the aircraft into the parking lot and off the road at the end.

A Newer, Better Version of Mr. Rossy’s Fully Working Jetpack

Swiss pilot/inventor Yves “Jetman” Rossy used a new version of his jet-proppelled wing to fly for a total of 18 minutes. He also did a couple of loops around the hot air balloon that he jumped off from.

In 2008, he made a flight over the Alps with an older model, reaching an average speed of 200 km/h and a top descent speed of 304 km/h.

I wonder if this thing will hit the mainstream market anytime soon?

I’ll Have 2 F-16s With A Hewie on The Side

This is an old video of Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear) taking a stroll in what is nicknamed “The Boneyard”, but officially known as the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group. With over 4,000 retired aircraft including every plane the US has flown since World War II. It is the world biggest plane cemetery.

Part of the collection are B-52 bombers, A-10 Thunderbolts, F-14 Tomcat, B-1 Lancer bomber and even F-16′s.

Bob Hoover: The Pilots’ Pilot

What Bob does with an aircraft is simply amazing. And he makes it look so easy that anyone can do it. Like pouring a drink with one hand and doing a barrel roll with the other without spilling the drink all over the cockpit.

The F-35 JSF is Looking Damn Sexy

I’ve wrote about the F-35′s first hover that lasted for about 90 seconds 2 months ago. Today the pics that were released are just edible.

These are the first photos of two F-35 Lighting II jet fighters flying in formation, just cleared for distribution by the Pentagon. They are so crispy and detailed you can even see the demon helmets inside the cockpit.

Via Gizmodo

Top 10 Flyby’s

This is one awesome video, a compilation of the best 10 flyby’s on the web. Those people are just insane.

In other aviation news, The Lockheed Martin’s F-35 managed to hover for the first time. The B variant stayed still for about 90 seconds in Patuxent River naval air station on March 17th.

The F-35 comes in 3 flavors, the “A” variant COTL (Conventional Takeoff and Landing). “B” STOVL (Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing). And Finally “C” Carrier variant, designed to make use of CATOBAR system (Catapult Assisted Take Off But Arrested Recovery).