Final Ride Of The CT-114

The Canadair CT-114 Tutor has been a jet trainer that entered service in the Royal Canadian Air Force, then with the Canadian Forces in the 1960s. 

The Tutor is the jet used by the Snowbirds Demonstration team, the 431 Air Demonstration Squadron, ever since the formation of the team. They use them to put on one heckuva stunning, nine-jet strong, demonstration of skilled acrobatic and formation precision flying.

Until now.

The last airshow featuring the Canadian Forces Snowbirds flying the CT-114 took this past weekend at the California Capital Air Show.

It is the end of an era. 

The Tutors are being retired due to age, and the Snowbirds are standing down, ending their era of flying jets.  

The jets will be replaced by CT-157 Siskin (Pilatus PC-21) prop trainers. 

The Snowbirds will not be fully re-equipped and returning to the air show circuit until at least 2030. 

Thunder Over Michigan 2026 - Got MiGs?

Yes, Thunder Over Michigan had MiGs.

Not one but two MiG-17s to be exact.  One a Lim-5 and the other a Lim-6 variant.

Lim-5

Lim-6

 The Lim-6 has a beefed up strakes on the wing with strongpoints for air to ground attack, and has and an extended tailcone that was originally designed to have a parachute but that was never put into production, and instead it is used as a transport pod.

Both MiGs taxied out together for a tandem takeoff.

 

Quite a sight as, with afterburners roaring, they took to the skies.

 

Then we got some formation passes.

They were hard to pick out of the sky in the smoke and twilight until they got rather close.

 

Managed some decent shots of the MiGs in the grey. Whether in camo or bare metal, both were hard to pick out of the muck.

 

Soon they landed and taxied back after a darn nice display of their speed, power, and maneuverability.

 

 

 

An impressive display of two historic jet warbirds.

Thunder Over Michigan 2026 - The Red Arrows

Even with the Smoke over Michigan, leading to the cancellation of the Friday show due to weather being below minimums for safe flying, the show went on Saturday.

Smoke was still present, and having the show run from 3pm to 9pm with the airshow performances themselves taking place from 6-9pm made lighting conditions rather unpleasant for photographers.  The joy of dealing with smoke and the sun shining right in your lens through breaks in the smoke made a less than ideal photographic environments.

For all that, the airshow offered some neat performances.

The highlight of the show was the Royal Air Force's Red Arrows, with this being their first time performing in Michigan, on a special tour for America's 250th anniversary. 

Flying here via Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland and on down to Michigan their next and final US performance will be at Oshkosh.

The Red Arrows did a staggered formation takeoff of  3, 2 and 2 for sevena aircraft in the air.

They quickly assembled into formation and the show began.

It began with a unique formation that may never occur again:  The Red Arrows with the US F-16 Falcon Demonstrator jet:
 

 

 

Very cool.

 

After the F-16 departed the formation, the main Red Arrow show began, starting with their namesake: a  Red Arrow formation:

 

 Lots of cool formation acrobatics then took place.

 The pilots were having an interesitng time keeping sight of each other in the smoky conditions which made it a tad harder than a typical show.

It ended with a formation break 

 

and then a landing in beautifully timed, spaced, and tightly executed sequential order, with a perfectly spaced formation taxi back to the ramp.

An impressive display of precision team airmanship under difficult conditions. 

The RAF Red Arrows did a phenomenal display and very well represented the best of the Royal Air Force and the United Kingdom.

F-35 Scores Its First Air-To-Air Kill

An Israeli F-35 Lightning II has shot down an Iranian Yak-130 over Tehran.

The Times Of Israel: In world 1st, Israeli F-35 shoots down Iranian jet in air-to-air combat over Tehran

This successful air-to-air kill for the F-35I marks the first time the F-35 has shot down another manned aircraft in combat so it is now 1-0.  

Yes, the Yak-130 is a light attack aircraft and jet trainer, but it is capable of air to air combat, and a kill is a kill.

This is just a first in a hopefully long string of air-to-air successes for the F-35.

That Is Not Going To Buff Out

On April 30, quite a storm rolled through Oakland County.

While the winds were gusting heavily, the flight school successor to Flight 101 that currently owns N73455, a Cessna 172M, was apparently trying to move it to shelter with a tug.

Unfortunately they had decided to get it to shelter, and then tried to do so, but too late.

 

It flipped and was damaged.

A recent photo taken by a friend who saw it this week, shows it was even more substantially damaged after that first photo was taken, with the damage possibly occurring when they went to flip it back over afterwards. 

A sad end to the plane I did my first solo in.

N73455 was, verily, a flying aluminum beer bucket of bolts (with non-essential pieces of the interior consistently falling off).  

So much so, that at least one local DPE had consistently refused to ever do a checkride in it (and all the other aircraft in that flight school) because of its condition.

But for all that, it was still a great and smooth flying aircraft.  When you were a student and didn't know any better about what condition an aircraft should be in, it was great. 

So farewell to N73455, she had a rough life, and wasn't cared for as she should have been, and her life was ended due to the same neglect she suffered all her life as a flight school aircraft.  

For all that, she always flew true, and gave many a student pilot their first thrilling gateway to a future of flying.  

So, Penguins Really Can't Fly

At least, they certainly can't fly rotary wing aircraft.

BBC: Unsecured penguin caused helicopter crash in South Africa

Send that bird to flight school.

No TDSers, The Helicopter - Jet Collision Is Not Trump's Fault

 The collision between a Blackhawk Helicopter and an American Airlines (flown by PSA Airlines) Regional Jet has brought all the anti-Trumpers out of the woodwork.

Those with severe Trump Derangement Syndrome are already blaming Trump for the accident - without any evidence. In some case ridiculously claiming it is due to chaos caused by Trump or his announcement ending DEI policies in government. This from many who should know better and are typically rational - except when it comes to Trump.

The NTSB will fully investigate and we will get answers in time. 

The DC area airspace is very congested and busy.  In fact a similar collision was narrowly averted the day before between a helicopter and a passenger jet.

So far, it appears to be likely the Blackhawk pilot was both flying above the appropriate corridor for helicopter traffic and the pilot identified the wrong aircraft.  The pilot apparently saw the departing one when the Tower Controller asked the pilot if the pilot had the traffic visually rather than the landing jet that was involved in the crash. Now,  the pilot responded they did have visual o the aircraft, which makes traffic separation primarily the pilot's responsibility at that point. Unfortunately, at night it appears the pilot identified the wrong aircraft and apparently did not have a visual on the PSA jet. 

The Tower controller meanwhile did not pick up on the fact that the Blackhawk was 200 feet above the 200 foot ceiling for helicopters in the area that put it in the flight path of the landing jet, nor did the helicopter pilot.

So were DEI policies to blame?  At this point it is quite simply too early to tell if those policies were a factor.

Indeed it is unknown if the controller or Blackhawk pilot were DEI-hires.  If they were there's going to be plenty of blame to go around. The Tower controller did not pick up on the fact that the Blackhawk was reportedly 200 feet outside of the appropriate flight path and in the flight path of the jet, and the helicopter pilot also seems to have made a series of mistakes leading to the incident.

Now, the Tower at Reagan is understaffed and apparently one controller was doing two jobs at the time of the incident which can lead to important things being overlooked and open the opportunity for accidents. Not hiring qualified white applicants to continue to try and find non-white DEI-scoring applicants may be a partial factor in the shortage of controllers.

In short, the full cause of the incident is not fully known and will not definitively be known until the NTSB completes its investigation. So no it cannot be definitively said what the cause was or if DEI was a factor in the crash but human factors certainly are the primary factor in this incident and DEI hiring doesn't enhance safety in aviation.

DEI has been reducing safety in aviation in a quest to hire a diverse workforce, reducing merit and aptitude as the key factor in hiring and repalcing it with diversity.

Did Biden and Obama adopt hiring polices based on DEI/Affirmative Action rather than merit and ability?  Yes, yes they did.

Did their administrations act in a way to hire unqualified controllers, including feeding Black applicants answers to the controller entrance exam to make sure they can pass the test and get hired?  Yes, yes they did.

Did the FAA even refuse to hire qualified applicants because they were white, while at the same time musing in presentations as to how much of a change in job performance is acceptable in performing diversity goals? Yes, yes they did.

In case you're wondering the answer to that question is that no change in job performance is acceptable  - you either can do the job competently or you cannot regardless of your race or background.  There are plenty of Black and female controllers that are more than fully capable and stand on their own merits and ability as controllers. That they were accepting lower performance in their quest to hire a DEI-workforce and get their ratios up is at the very least shameful and at worst horrific in reducing safety in a quest for DEI-compliance.

Time spent in DEI-sensitivity training could certainly be better spent on piloting skill improvement or aircraft controlling training.

So no, the collision is not President Trump's fault, and we don't know yet if or how much DEI hiring and focus was a factor in the incident.

Goodbye Yankee Lady

The Yankee Lady has taken to the skies from the Yankee Air Museum Michigan Flight Museum for the last time.

 

Bought by the museum in 1986 for $250,000 she was allegedly sold for somewhere in the range of $15 million.

She's heading off for an overhaul and then to the new owner apparently in California.
 

Sold, likely due to the costs involved in keeping her airworthy, and for the announced reason that it was due to the museum's over-reliance on the revenue from rides on the aircraft, which was affected whenever B-17s were grounded by the FAA, the museum decided to sell its centerpiece.  The museum, in a separate decision, also rebranded itself as the Michigan Flight Museum, bringing an end to the years of goodwill and recognition as the Yankee Air Museum.

The Yankee Lady has departed its home base Ypsilanti for the last time, and is off for an overhaul and then on to its new but currently undisclosed owner who is apparently in California.

Light Chop

In Atlanta today, a Delta Airbus 350's wing collided with the tail of a Delta CRJ while both were taxiing on parallel taxiways.

This collision severed the tail of the regional jet.

CBS: 2 Delta planes collide on tarmac at Atlanta airport, FAA says

Happily there are no reported injuries. 

It's going to take more than 100-mile-per-hour tape to repair that one.

London Trip 8 - IWM Duxford - Air And Sea

The last gallery we visited was the Air and Sea Exhibit.

The gallery looked at air power at sea.

Lots of rare planes are on display.

Including early carrier borne aircraft like the 1930s Hawker Nimrod:

The 1941 Fairey Firefly

 The Grumman Wildcat, first called the Martlet in Royal Navy service. This one is the only flying condition Wildcat in all of Europe.

Then the Jet age represented by

The Hawker Sea Hawk:

The De Havilland Sea Vixen, the naval version of the Vampire

The Hawker Hunter also served in the Royal Navy, not on a carrier but land-based in the FRADU Unit:

The Hawker-Siddley Buccaneer, the famous low level British attack aircraft.  Here it is demonstrating its low flying capabilities, being so low it is hiding behind a trailer of assorted stuff.

The Royal Navy operated the F4 Phantom as the FGR2 (This Phantom here was actually used by the RAF and not the Fleet Air Arm):

 

And of course, there are naval helicopters like the Sea King:

The Westland Wasp, with this particular craft serving in the Falklands War.

It's a fantastic display of naval air power.

IWM Duxford is a must visit if you an enthusiast of airplanes, history, or technology.

Duxford is truly an amazing museum and well worth the effort getting there from London.  Getting back to London was, however, a whole 'nother story.

London Trip 10 - Duxford - The Battle Of Britain

We entered the Battle Of Britain gallery.

Duxford was the sector station for G Sector in 12 Group during the Battle.

A  shot down BF-109 greets you as you walk in:

This particular BF-109 E-3 crash-landed in Sussex during the Luftwaffe’s last major daylight raid on London in September 1940. The plane was subsequently restored to what it looked like immediately after the crash.

There's Hawker Hurricanes:

You can look inside the cockpit of one of the Hurricanes:

And of course, there are Spitfires:

A Bristol Blenheim bomber:

There's also an unusual plane used in the Battle of Britain, albeit in a non-combat role:

The Cierva C30A autogiro was used by the Royal Air Force to check radar accuracy. The Radar Calibration Flight 1448 was based at Duxford from 1940 to 1942.

Search lights and antiaircraft guns are also on display:

After the Battle of Britain was won, the Germans then in 1944  bega sending V-1 flying bombs and a captured V-1 is on display at the end of the exhibit.

The Battle Of Britain gallery is very well laid out complete with lots of detailed information about the pilots ground crews, observers, controllers, and others who all played a role in the battle.