My Minimax playing snowmobile. (pretty much only gets any use anymore during the winter as a ski plane..... landing in peoples back yards on a snowy winter day is a blast:) !)
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While working at the factory I got to see and at times fly some very interesting airplane. NASA has a Lear 23 or 24, forget which, that does atmospheric flights at 60,000 feet.

They get the factory to spec the J85 engines to run 101.2 % at altitude. These engines usually run out of poop around 40,000 or so and max you can get out of them is 92-94%. Running at 101.2 (max power BTW) they get up this high for a bit but no more than 45 minutes.

Yes, they do wear pressure suits at this altitude. Highest we took the birds (no pressure suits and I was not going to risk it) was 51,000 and change. Still, you can see the curvature of the Earth at this altitude.

Pat, you are correct with the old 23/24/25 series Lears. After an hours flight you were looking for a place to land but you could push it out a bit longer by climbing to 45 or even 51,000 feet. Lear built a 28/29 model airplane, same as the others but with different wing and winglet, way back in the 70's. They would do 51,000 easily and stay for over 90 minutes at this altitude.

Funny thing, most of them got fitted with a very interesting door that had a lens on the bottom and based in Pakistan by shell company working for a certain three letter United States organization doing overflights of this entire area. The ones I knew of were flown by Air America pilots out of Islamabad. No idea where they are now, but did not see them when I was there 4 days ago.



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Tim,

Very nice dope and fabric work! Agree on the money.

Cash,

Had several friends who were on Bronco's during Viet Nam as FAC's. They loved the birds.

I was stationed at Fort Wegotcha (Huachuca) AZ in the late 80s. There was a Marine detachment there and several Broncos sat at the other end of the field from our Mohawks.

Not all of the OV-1s went to AMARC. A few are in private ownership, and most that were still airworthy went to Argentina. My particular bird is one of the Argentinian birds now.

Somehow, 4 OV-1 engines ended up in my garage for a while.

Cash,

The engine on the OV is a civie Garrett TPE-331, nothing special but somewhat expensive. Same one on certain King Air's, Metro's and MU-2 aircraft.

Nice engine (I trained on them) but extremely expensive to keep going. They have a few AD's and SB's and Garrett is expensive on their parts. Business's can afford them but not many private people.

Spent many days at Fort Hunchahuk, nice place most of the time. Some very interesting experiments going on down there at times...

Don't know about the Broncos, but the Mohowks all came with Lycoming T-53 engines.

Hueys also used the T-53.

I know that the overhaul facility for them local to me - Honeywell of Greer. And I know Honeywell bought out Garret and AiReasearch.... but I didn't think the T-53 was the same as a TPE-331. The T-53 has a free power turbine and the 331 does not, iirc.

http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avbtsv1.html

I eventually sold my engines to an offshore race team in Florida.

Sorry and forgot about the T-53. Good engine and lots of people using them.

You are correct, Honeywell did purchase Garrett. Same, same.

joe, thanks for the cool pics of the lr-28. we tended to push our early lears, even the ones certified to fl-410, we'd sometimes creep up to 43 or even 45 if we could for weather..although i do recall a couple of single-engine flameouts riding the turbulence on top and having to drop down to fl-250 to re-light right inside the guts of the storm (always an underwear-challenging event). ;) i know of at least one crew that had a dual-engine flameout..apparently serious enough that it was reported by the crew and the manufacturer got with the company to discuss details. highest i ever saw was creeping a lr-36xr up to 47 while doing air ambo work out of florida. i always wanted to see that 'curvature of the earth' phenom talked about above 50 though..
ryan

Great planes, guys. Unfortunately here's all I have to add :) :

Google map of Pima Air Museum. It's pretty interesting to look around at all the great old planes there. Zoom in for a closer look.

Speaking of high altitude flight, I've got some video on a DVD I took while on Concorde from about 58,500 feet. I'll see if I can figure out how to snip a small piece off and post it on YouTube.

Libby Army Air Field...I got stories. Sins of Cortez in the mid to late 80's.

I'm just sayin'.

For you aviation buffs, here is crabbed-landing A380 trials video from Keflavik, fresh from today:
http://www.mbl.is/mblvideo/157.wmv

It was unusually windy at KEF, so they took petrol card and went to KEF to practice crosswind landings ;)

very cool, scott. i for one would love to see that video! i sure miss flying..these posts are always bittersweet for me. at least you guys help keep the memories of the good times alive and as always, i thank all of you for that..
ryan

tim hancock your snowmobile pics are too cool! being in the dezert you dont get to see that ever! how do you know how strong the snow is to support plane?

Joe- You must be feeling a little cramped after 9 hours in the Challenger! How much fuel does it carry?

My only Lear experience was a test flight in a 25D. The climb rate was amazing to say the least. We departed Boeing Field towards Olympia and were at FL350 by the time we hit the west side of the Puget Sound.

Blue,

Have done 9 hours 35 minutes in a 604 model, and thats about 4 hours too much. At least the bird has a lot of room and we can get up and walk around a bit.

Flying tomorrow from Dubai to Tripoli Libya, 5 hours and change. Then on to Paris and so on... seeing the world.

Joe

Charles, the skiis have enough surface area that snow depth is a non issue. I have taxied into peoples back yards and parked on top of 3' deep snow drifts and the skiis only sink 4-6" (when I hopped out I sank to my knees and hand propping it to start is not fun or very safe when attempting to do so in deep soft snow).

Typically too little snowfall is the only issue to worry about if I am out visiting, as frozen farms fields are too rough to land on unless they are well covered. On a grass runway, a 1" dusting of snow is actually sufficient. The best is 4"+ of fresh powder, it is a heavenly feeling touching down in the soft stuff. When the snow becomes crusted and icy, taxiing downwind in 10+ mph winds is pretty dicy as there are no brakes on the skiis and in a stiff breeze, you sometimes have to use reverse rudder on the ground when a gust kicks up. I have been out in 15-20 mph winds and on hard crusted snow pointed into the wind, I have broke ground in less than 40' (full power...stick forward for an instant....stick back and you are up...in about the time you just read that procedure)!

The max's best cruise is about 75mph (I mean 63 mph), but it will hang on the prop at 25mph indicated which is probably about 20mph. At 45-50 it can turn in a very small diameter and when you nail it on take off, you can actually feel yourself getting pressed back in your seat. For shear fun flying close to home on a winter morning or a warm summer evening, it trumps nearly anything else I have flown or own.

Here I am departing Innsbruck, Austriahttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1163423546.jpg

I took this picture on a recent trip to Portland area. Taken on the north end of Sedona Arizona airport.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1163444096.jpg

Blue,

Forgot, 20,000 pounds of Jet A.

K-Jet, I used to be one of the checkairmen for pilots flying into Innsbruck.

A pic of me in front of our Lear 25 on the ramp there in the late 1980's.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1163446510.jpg

We flew medivac missions all over the world based out of Berlin. Innsbruck really loved our turbojet (loud) Lear, especially during the night transplant flights! :)