[Papa8]

Anyone else found this programme called Jetstream on discovery turbo yet? It has followed a couple of different formats. Yesterday it was all about a group of Canuck F18 pilots going through the walkaround preflight which had 155 checks that have to be memorised. Classic was when the instructor said "dont touch this part it is toxic just eyeball it" They then had to carry out another 290? checks inside the cockpit pre-take off. Makes preflighting an ordinary twin look like a piece of cake! It takes a novice pilot around 45 mins and an experienced pilot five minutes!

It also takes in civilian aircraft and interviews with red bull air race pilots in other series of it.

The other programme on Discovery currently is ex gulf war pilot John Nicol test flying various classic military aircraft. In one episode he goes to visit the MiG factory to fly with a test pilot in a MiG 29 Fulcrum. After various pleasantries exchanged about how gorgeous the plane is etc the RAF pilot begins to talk about needing to use the ejection seat once as he was shot down in the Gulf War. He asks the Russian test pilot if he knows what shot him down and he replies "I think it was a missile". John replies "Yes. A Soviet missile" Without missing a beat the Russian replies soberly but with good humour and a strong accent "Well sorry about that" . John laughs and says roughly something like "No problem. It happens" Brilliant .

Don't suppose Hum knows the RAF pilot? Seems like a nice guy.

[stovepipe]

Hi there,
Funny that.It sounds daunting when you recite the numbers like 155 items to remember, yet the techies who service those CF-18s can carry out the entire turnaround/transit check/preflight check including the cockpit check from memory.Perhaps the pilots should ask the techies for the tour first...
regards
Stovepipe

[Hoss]

Hi,
Thought John Nichol was an R.A.F. navigator rather than a pilot?
Regards.

[Papa8]

You are probably right he never flies the aircraft on the programme but I would have thought that a RAF navigator also goes through basic flight school as a pilot anyhow.

[mr crow]

.

[Papa8]

Actually another interesting snippet was the runway near Moscow was over 16000ft long and 100m wide!

[Dutch Roll]

i read their book 'tornado down' a few years back,was one of those books you can't put down.john peters i think was the pilot.