Minor landing mishap
 

What was the "minor landing mishap" by an american airforce aircraft last night at Melbourne Airport that caused a few aircraft to be delayed while the runway was inspected? There appeared to be a lot of fire engines running around out there but couldnt make out what they were up to in the dark.

The B1 that did the display at Avalon Friday night had a hydraulic problem which meant he had to land flapless. The fire tenders came out at Avalon briefly, but the pilot decided to divert to Tulla, probably for the longer runway.

The B1 came back to Avalon at about 6 pm tonight - landing with flaps extended.

If my memory is still reliable didn't something similar happen the last time the B1 came to Avalon? Maybe they need to issue a NOTAM for 20 minutes traffic due aging strike bomber within 50nm radius Tullamarine airport.

I was in Airport West at 5pm today and saw the B1 take off and turn toward Avalon. Seemed to climb pretty high to go 'down the road'. Perhaps did a test or two.

For some reason the aircraft isn't displayed on webtrack, although the decibel meter turns red with 85 decibels at 5:02pm.

Yep. Last airshow 2009 one of the B1's decided to land at Tulla (can't remember why) and blew a tyre. They had to take a wheel off the other B1 at Avalon to retrieve the aircraft from Tulla.

Say what you like about it, but it is an extremely graceful looking machine. Looks beautiful in a climbing turn. :ok:

Hey at least we have some bombers.

Actually, the AFAP of 1989 fame did that to Air Nauru back in 1988 when the chief pilot of Air Nauru did a runner and left the company without a chief pilot.

So the AFAP (very militant in those long gone days) isued a directive that because Air Nauru was deemed by the AFAP to be "unsafe" without a chief pilot, no AFAP crewed aircraft (all Ansett and Australian Airlines) were to be flying within 50 miles of any Air Nauru aircraft arriving or departing within Australia. No NOTAM for that of course. It cost the Aussie airlines a lot of money because of the delays caused. Air Nauru 737's had all this 50 mile airspace surrounding Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne to themselves for take off and landings. Maybe same restriction could be applied to visiting B1's with dodgy flaps:ok:

AFAP = brain dead if they actually did that. Who were they penalising? Only the travelling public who pays their way...

While crap for the travelling public, Ansett, Australian and their employees, it'd make flying for Air Nauru into a pretty decent gig. Fly into SY at 8am on a Monday morning and have the whole place to yourself :ok:

Wonder what it would've said had ATC said something to the effect of "cleared direct to Avalon, not above 2000" :ok:

you know you're stuggling when 10,000ft of bitumen doesn't cut the mustard.

Imagine the media if it had a red tail with a kangaroo on it!:ugh:

Chimbo said:
Sure does and loud. Found this on the web from Friday night:

Maybe a B1 is what QANTAS needs to address the media rather than a group of PR people.