maintenance/acceptance test pilots test the aircraft within its flight envelope (safe operating limits), while test pilots help discover and define that envelope.
Having 17y of experience flying military (subsonic) jets and being test acceptance pilot for a few years as well, I feel I can share my perspective on this extraordinary event:
First I was just wow!
Then I read the PDF from 2013 blog and little bit of relief came from knowing that he was qualified pilot too.
But there is a big but! Before that, he flew dramatically different, slower only propeller planes, no jet, no supersonic jet. I can imagine that it kinda might be smth like having driving licence, but being put into an F1 car and asked to handle it properly in order to follow the track in highspeed, but in 3D.
Anyway, I recall my first flight on L-39 after having 20h on Ulla and 50h on Z-142: it was the same flying one is used to, but since releasing the brakes on runway the speed makes the biggest (initial) difference. And then the landing. Otherwise flying is always the same, same flying controls, what changes is the avionics, speeds, g-loads and capability to do certain manoeuvres.
Regarding speed jets are obviously different level fast from propeller engine planes, landscape runs below you way much faster than you are used to.
Higher speed means less time for decision and reaction, no time for "wait, I need to think something over", because times flies and jet flies with it, fast. Nobody waits for you and your pondering there. Its totally different workload.
"I needed to get the feel of the aircraft, if I was to get it back on the ground".
"..how does one interpolate or extrapolate Tiger Moth, Chipmunk Harvard flying to a two engined, 11 ton, beast like the Lightning?"
That is exactly it. Get to feel the aircraft comes with time and experience, especially with final part of the landing (hovering above runway) your brain and eyes need to learn to see proper angle shown to you by instructor.
The most difficult to initially learn is the proper flare phase, when you transition from the approach to the actual touchdown. During final seconds you learn to feel through your butt the rate of descent - you coordinate butt feeling of descending (less speed means less lift, thus more descending) with hand pulling the stick to compensate decreasing speed with increasing the angle of attack (thus increasing lift), you smoothly balance this dynamic imbalance, you slowly decrease speed, increase lift and slowly decrease the height above the concrete in order to land smoothly from desired height. If you overcompensate (pull too much), plane can jump few meter up in the air, which you dont want (being higher with decreasing speed means you can just stall/fall on runway from few meters), if you undercompensate you will hit the ground with sharper descend angle sooner and with higher speed (which can start the sequence of hits and jumps that need to be taken under control). Practice makes you learn from these mistakes, make corrections for the wind aspect, air temperature (extremely cold or hot makes difference) ,take into account different configuration of aircraft, different fuel weight affects this too.
So there is a lot of trial and error and time needed learning to land safely. All in all, it took everybody ~10h before our instructors let us fly first jet solo. Of course we could crashland sooner with less experience.
Well, to conclude, every landing is different and every airline passenger can confirm, that sometimes it can be even adventurous.
I am sharing all this just to show, how extraordinary his landing was! Kudos!
>> Regarding speed jets are obviously different level fast from propeller engine planes, landscape runs below you way much faster than you are used to. Higher speed means less time for decision and reaction, no time for "wait, I need to think something over", because times flies and jet flies with it, fast. Nobody waits for you and your pondering there. Its totally different workload.
I am guessing this accounts for the fact that he couldn't turn the afterburners off until he had lifted off: he didn't have the time to fiddle enough with the controls.
>> During final seconds you learn to feel through your butt the rate of descent - you coordinate butt feeling of descending (less speed means less lift, thus more descending) with hand pulling the stick to compensate decreasing speed with increasing the angle of attack (thus increasing lift), you smoothly balance this dynamic imbalance, you slowly decrease speed, increase lift and slowly decrease the height above the concrete in order to land smoothly from desired height.
That must be what people mean when they talk about "flying by the seat of your pants" XD
>> I am guessing this accounts for the fact that he couldn't turn the afterburners off until he had lifted off: he didn't have the time to fiddle enough with the controls.
Yes, his survival instincts were correct choosing priorities of what to solve first.
>>That must be what people mean when they talk about "flying by the seat of your pants" XD
History will see last years as EU that turned Europe
-suicidal for own energy industry and economy via green deal without real impact for the world (see EU vs World/ China CO2 emisions chart)
-demographically/socially suicidal via open borders and stupidly generous social benefits for immigrants instead of supporting own families
-going back in time via overregulation of every aspect of our lives
-becoming police state/s via overcontrol
-hypocritical via outsourcing industries and making carbon footprint in other parts of the world
-internally weak via not protecting european values over immigrants "rights" and terror mongering (p.e. Xmas markets canceled on many places)
-supresing democracy via online censorship (DSA)
-juicing own people via over-taxation (exit taxes and unrealized gains taxes)
-being stowaway in terms of own external security (majority of states didn't fulfill NATO requirements in terms of GDP's percentage spent on military...well this actually is one thing that improves over the years, but Europe needed a kick from east and west to becoming adult here after years of underspending)
All in all, EU controlling Europe is committing civilizational suicide, living off past merits which results/capacity are running low while morally lecturing the rest. At the same time also destroying the very foundations that made Europe prosperous. History will likely look back at us as we/Europe voluntarily chose decline.
ps. the fact that I had to check if any claim made is not illegal, shows how far with censorship we already are.
Freedom of speech cant be regulated without being lost.
Its a frustration and seeing things, that cant be unseen, speaking..
I don't know where model is, but what would be ideal: valuing own history, values, societies over not own, being strong outwardly and soft inwardly/on own people (not vice versa as is now), being practical and forward thinking over posing as a "leader in regulation" with suppressing everything meaningful hangover.
There are tons of examples of strategically bad political decisions with long term broad consequences.
What country in Europe are you referring to? Your objections seem to be quite broad and lack focus but seem to be alluding to the specific. Give me an example of what you mean?
I think leadership is hard. I’m not sure I buy the idea that a group of countries should be “hard” on anyone.
Political decision to close modern nuclear powerplants without replacement - Germany. Experts made a petition to reopen them.
Migration - EU failed for many years to protect its border against illegal imigration - millions came, half a mil now legalized in Spain.
Overregulation - EU institutions themselves now acknowledge that regulatory and administrative burdens are hurting EU competitivenes
"Integration"/security - imigrants choose rich countries with good social benefits while in some areas inner security drops (car attacks, knife attacks, ra*es)
Greendeal-carbon pricing paid by industries to meet strict quotas, soon also paid by households, very expensive for europeans while having near zero effect on global emmisions in commparisson to China/rest of the world aka too much pain/costs for "nothing".
Digital regulation - via DSA, fight against so called "hate speech" and "disinformation"
Unrealized gains taxes - Netherlands
Exit taxes - France, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium (conditions vary in each coountry).
Demographical colapse - all EU countries have born rate below replacement level 2.1 (average 1.34 for EU in 2024)
Strategic dependency - Europe made itself super dependent on Russia for energy and from military POV on USA, both of these dependencies are now being painfully corrected
Digital ID/CBDC: EU is building digital ID and digital euro, tools with obvious future potential for surveillance and control.
Concerning being "hard" I meant mainly protecting our borders, being hard on enforcing them and our own laws equally on everybody, being strong independent just Europe in general
Obviously I am no expert in (geo)politics, just an average Joe observing concerning tendencies and not liking direction EU is heading.
I don't really see these as problems. I think the world needs someone to lead on the environment and Europe is more than rich enough that they can handle some short term pain. The countries aren't trying to maximize for short term gains like some other countries and thinking more long term and I think that is a great thing.
From the top.
Nuclear - many people in Europe are anti nuclear
Migration - Europe is going to need migrants and I think most Europeans are in favor of a kinder Migration system
I like European regulation, particularly food regulation - I think it makes for high quality food. Besides, companies always complain about regulation.
Crime has decreased substantially in Europe since 2000 - lots of people are stoking tensions though for their own political ends
Carbon tax is good, the world should adopt one, Europe can lead on this.
Digital Regulation, more problematic for me but people are beginning to see the issues are social media and online porn, something has been needed here for a while
Taxes, lots of countries have taxes. Many countries have exit taxes - seems to be a problem for richer people.
Birth rate - as countries get richer they have less kids... not going to be forcing people to have kids so I'm not sure what the solution is there but I think Migration will play a role.
....
basically all of these sound like a bunch of Fox news soundbites rather than real world issues that Europeans have and I feel most Europeans are in favor of these things so this is how Democracy works.
I like that they are thinking longer term and not doing stupid shit like invading countries and killing people. I think thats a win in and of itself. Also, Europe has been peaceful for several generations now which is also a huge win.
I think that main difference is, that you look at Europe from outside,
I live here and talk to people from mentioned European countries living with these consequences and problems.
One more typical example: we have no big AI company in the EU, because EU was busy being "world first AI regulator" before the industry even started here.
I’m actually European and live in the US so I have plenty of perspective.
For what it’s worth I think the US should increase petroleum tax to limit usage - not going to fly here but I’m all for Europe doing it. Especially without domestic oil sources - bring on the EV revolution, makes tons of sense for everywhere in the world especially Europe.
> All in all, EU controlling Europe is committing civilizational suicide, living off past merits
The excessive prosperity ended together with the end of the colonization era (there are still a lot of european colonies but they aren't enough to make Europe rich).
Losing access to shamelessly cheap resources naturally and forced customers impoverished Europe and this process is still going. Same thing would be happening with the US thus the aggressiveness now.
maintenance/acceptance test pilots test the aircraft within its flight envelope (safe operating limits), while test pilots help discover and define that envelope.
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