Date of presentation: 9-Dec-2013
Subject: Video Night at Squadron 80
Description: Jeff took the easy way out on this occasion by showing a series of AE-related videos and images he had found through various sources on the Internet. The items shown were:
- A picture of a Piper Cub (J-3) with a single-bladed propeller. Yes, that's right - a single-bladed propeller. The idea is that the single blade will always be passing through undisturbed air, rather than passing through the vortex caused by the previous blade's passage, and would therefore be more efficient.
- A video of aerial saw trimming. This refers to a series of large saw blades connected in a long line through some sort of hollow bar, dangling from the underside of a helicopter, and used to trim trees along a high-voltage electrical line running through a very remote and very dense forest. This method allowed trimming those trees that encroached on the electrical line far more quickly than sending work crews to trim them by hand.
- A video of some impressive aerobatic flying. I'm not sure who the pilot is, although the file as I got it was named "Kirby". Some of the procedures flown were absolutely jaw-dropping, such as flipping the plane over mid-flight, ending up with the tail ahead of the rest of the fuselage for a brief moment before recovering.
- Finally, a video taken of an airshow... in 1945! The squadron had a lot of fun trying to identify the various aircraft on display, including a large number of captured German and other enemy planes.
