British Airways and Heathrow Terminal 5

CONTENTS

Jet Provost T3A from the cockpit

Malaysian Airline System at 40

Top o’ the Sears

Ilyushin Il-62 at 50

Doug Green concludes the look back at the split of Malaysia-Singapore Airlines by examining the first 40 years of Malaysian Airline System.

Gareth Stringer was lucky enough to bag himself a few rides in fast jets in 2012 and he shares the story of his experiences with the Newcastle Jet Provost Group’s T3A here.

Rob Edgcumbe heads out into Chicago once more to witness another lift operation utilising a helicopter. This time the mission is to replace an antenna on top of what was previously called the Sears Tower.

As the Il-62 celebrates 50 years, Karl Drage examines the development of an aircraft that led the way in long-range Soviet jet design for several decades.

CONTENTS Issue 15January 2013

100 Years of Lockheed Martin

British Airways & Heathrow Terminal 5

Dheeraj Bhasin, an Airbus Senior First Officer, takes us on a tour of British Airways’ Heathrow operation.

Main cover image - Karl Drage

Jeff Rhodes looks back at 100 years of legacy Lockheed Martin aircraft and their association with the US Navy.

Mike Yeo reports from Australia on Exercise Pitch Black 2012 which featured participation from Indonesia and Thailand.

40 Years of

As described in the Singapore Airlines (SIA) article in Issue 12 of Global Aviation Magazine, Malaysian Airline System (MAS) and Singapore Airlines (SIA) were born in October 1972 as a result of the dissolution of Malaysia-Singapore Airlines (MSA). Doug Green concludes the 40th anniversary account with the story of Malaysia's national carrier.

JET PROVOST T3A

From the Cockpit

Image - Karl Drage

Images: As credited

Words: Gareth Stringer

2012 saw Gareth Stringer fulfil a lifelong dream and fly in a fast jet. It all started with the JP3 at RAF Cosford, thanks to Neil McCarthy, and here's the first part of a story that will be continued next month.

Having a very tall building (for many years the world’s tallest) provides a great location for placing antennas that will serve a large surrounding area. The Willis Tower in Chicago (for many years known as the Sears Tower and still called that by most Chicagoans) is over 1,300’ tall and its roof is a popular place for companies to site antennas. The roof is a forest of aerials and some of the larger ones are for the transmission of TV signals. TheThe introduction of high definition television has changed the requirements for transmission and ABC 7, one of the main stations in Chicago, needed to replace its antenna with a new design.

Since these antennae are quite large structures perched on top of the highest building around, there are relatively few methods available to take off the old antenna and replace it with a new one. By far the most cost effective method is to use a helicopter. Construction Helicopters of Howell MI were selected to undertake the work which was to be done in two parts. The first was the removal of the original antenna. Then,Then, several weeks later and with the necessary preparation work completed, the new antenna was ready to be lifted into place.

If you want to have a TV antenna serving a large area, putting it on top of the highest building for hundreds of miles makes a lot of sense. If you want to replace it though, your options are a bit limited. Rob Edgcumbe joined the team undertaking this task.

Top o’ the Sears

Since these antennae are quite large structures perched on top of the highest building around, there are relatively few methods available to take off the old antenna and replace it with a new one. By far the most cost effective method is to use a helicopter. Construction Helicopters of Howell MI were selected to undertake the work which was to be done in two parts. The first was the removal of the original antenna. Then,Then, several weeks later and with the necessary preparation work completed, the new antenna was ready to be lifted into place.

Above - Pre-sunrise Chicago looks great from the top of the tower.

Main - The S-61N climbs above the city vertically with the load suspended

Lifting a piece like this into place is not a simple task. As with any downtown lift, closing off the surrounding area is a necessity to ensure that there are no people anywhere below who are not supposed to be there. However, that is only part of the task. The roof is festooned with antennae of various types, many of which are emitting radiation at a level that is harmful if you are too close. With many people on the roof to support the job, all of these had to be shut down so everyone could work safely. This resulted in a rival TV station losinglosing its signal for a few hours. Indeed the lift was rescheduled since the station concerned was covering the Olympics and was not willing to lose its signal during such a high profile event. Even so, the job was undertaken early on a Sunday morning to minimize disruption to the local area and the owners of the various other antennae.

If you want to have a TV antenna serving a large area, putting it on top of the highest building for hundreds of miles makes a lot of sense. If you want to replace it though, your options are a bit limited. Rob Edgcumbe joined the team undertaking this task.

A RAAF Hornet in 77 Sqn markings holds short while a Singaporean Gulfstream G550 Conformal AEW aircraft lands following an afternoon sortie.

Once every two years, the blue skies of Australia’s Northern Territory (NT) become a hive of military aviation activity as Exercise Pitch Black takes place. Named for the dark moonless nights in Australia’s sparsely populated north when pilots flew the first exercise missions before night vision equipmentequipment was available, the exercise brings together Australian, American and various air forces from neighbouring Asian nations in an intense series of realistic combat scenarios over a period of (usually) three weeks.

Mike Yeo, Base Leg Aviation News and Photography, reports for GAM.

A RAAF Hornet in 77 Sqn markings holds short while a Singaporean Gulfstream G550 Conformal AEW aircraft lands following an afternoon sortie.

EXERCISE PITCH BLACK 2012

Ilyushin’s “Classic”50 Years of the Il-62

2 January 2013 will mark 50 years since the Ilyushin Il-62 flew for the first time. A product of the Ilyushin OKB (“Опытное конструкторское бюро" - Opytnoe Konstructorskoe Byuro, meaning Experimental Design Bureau) drawing boards in 1960, the Il-62, NATO code-name ‘Classic’, was built by the Kazan Aircraft Production Association (KAPO) as a successor to the turbo-prop powered Ilyushin Il-18. Karl Drage looks back at the aircraft’s development.

Image - Karl Drage

Aircraft development moved at a tremendously fast pace during the ‘50s and ‘60s, and less than three years after the first flight of the Il-18 in July 1957 – an aircraft which proved to be extremely successful in its own right – the Ilyushin design bureau was already planning its jet-engined, inter-continental successor.

Design

TheThe four-engined design was presented to the Soviet Council of Ministers in February 1960 and received approval on 18 June of that year. The Kuznetsov OKB was simultaneously instructed to develop a new powerplant for the Il-62, known as the NK-8 turbofan, with each engine capable of producing 22,273lbs of thrust.

Ilyushin’s “Classic”50 Years of the Il-62

Words: Karl Drage

Images: as credited

From Eugene Ely’s first tentative landing on a makeshift wooden deck on the fantail of the heavy cruiser USS Pennsylvania (Armored Cruiser #4) in a Curtiss pusher biplane on 18 January 1911 to the first vertical landing of the F-35B Lightning II on the asphalt deck

of the USS Wasp (LHD-1) by Marine Corps test pilot Lt. Col. Fred Schenk on 3 October 2011, Naval Aviation has made astounding technological leaps over its first century.

This article, written by Jeff Rhodes, is reproduced with permission from Lockheed Martin’s Code One Magazine

From Eugene Ely’s first tentative landing on a makeshift wooden deck on the fantail of the heavy cruiser USS Pennsylvania (Armored Cruiser #4) in a Curtiss pusher biplane on 18 January 1911 to the first vertical landing of the F-35B Lightning II on the asphalt deck

of the USS Wasp (LHD-1) by Marine Corps test pilot Lt. Col. Fred Schenk on 3 October 2011, Naval Aviation has made astounding technological leaps over its first century.

This article, written by Jeff Rhodes, is reproduced with permission from Lockheed Martin’s Code One Magazine

Image - Within three months of the first flight of the PBY, the Navy started development of a much larger flying boat with better performance than the Catalina. The first of 207 Consolidated PB2Y Coronado flying boats was delivered to the Navy at the end of 1940. The Coronado only saw limited combat over its career, but on 30 January 1944, Navy crews flying PB2Y-2s made a 2,000-mile roundtrip from Midway to WakeWake Island to carry out a night bombing raid against Japanese airfields. Most PB2Ys were used for executive transport or carrying cargo. The Coronado was also flown in limited numbers by the Coast Guard and the Royal Air Force.

Ever since the British Airways Board was established in 1971, London’s Heathrow Airport has always been the carrier’s main hub. Following the 14 March 2008 opening of Terminal 5, almost all of the airline’s services are now operated from this state-of-the-art facility.

Company Airbus A320 pilot Dheeraj Bhasin takes us on an after-hours tour of BA’s impressive operation.

& Heathrow Terminal 5BRITISH AIRWAYS

Pictures: Karl Drage

t is a rare privilege indeed to be able to tour around Heathrow Airport. Even having been a British Airways pilot for five years, I am

amazed at how much there is to discover about the BA operation out of Terminal 5 when you scratch below the surface. It is why I start this article with thanks – thanks to the individuals who worked so hard to get Karl Drage, Natasha Verrall-Bhasin (from the RAF and writing for the

I Air Cadet magazine) and I access to the ‘inside’ of the operation that is British Airways and Terminal 5. From British Airways I must thank Paul Smiles, Sue Goldthorpe and Tony Cane; and from the British Airports Authority I must thank Rachel Betts. Special thanks also go to Glenn Palmer who was our escort around the airfield for the duration of our visit.for the duration of our visit.

& Heathrow Terminal 5

Words: Dheeraj BhasinBRITISH AIRWAYS