The Greatest Airport that NEVER Was!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ย. 2024
- Do you have a Great AI or Tech Idea? Contact CVT here 👉🏻 cvt.ai/mentour
To try the New Mentour App, just go to app.mentourpil... and register a user.
-----------------------------------------------------
What is THIS? Why would someone build a GIANT runway with a parallel taxiway, in the middle of nowhere in Florida? And how come is it still there AND being used today, a full 55 YEARS after it started getting built? Even if you know what this is about, I bet that there are details about this place and its present use that will surprise you. Stay tuned!
-----------------------------------------------------
If you want to support the work I do on the channel, join my Patreon crew and get awesome perks and help me move the channel forward!
👉🏻 / mentourpilot
Our Connections:
👉🏻 Exclusive Mentour Merch: mentour-crew.c...
👉🏻 Our other channel: / mentourpilotaviation
👉🏻 Amazon: www.amazon.com...
👉🏻 BOSE Aviation: boseaviation-e...
Social:
👉🏻 Facebook: / mentourpilot
👉🏻 Instagram: / mentour_pilot
👉🏻 Twitter: / mentourpilot
👉🏻 Discord server: / discord
Download the FREE Mentour Aviation app for all the lastest aviation content
👉🏻
-----------------------------------------------------
Below you will find the links to videos and sources used in this episode.
• Alligator swims toward...
• American Convair CV-99...
• Pacific Air Lines Mart...
• F-0759 Convair 880 Gol...
• The 50th anniversary o...
• Hidden History -- Ever...
• Everglades Mountains a...
• United Air Lines Pilot...
• From March 30, 1985: C...
mentourpilot.c...
edition.cnn.co....
floridainsider...
www.nps.gov/bi...
![[TH] 2024 PMSL SEA Finals D3 | Fall | รู้ผลทีมแชมป์ พร้อมตั๋วสู่ PMGC](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/7NxsN0Ch6vk/mqdefault.jpg)
Do you have a Great AI or Tech Idea? Contact CVT here 👉🏻 cvt.ai/mentour
To try the New Mentour App, just go to app.mentourpilot.com and register a user! I think you will love it.
I watched - in complete awe - Concorde taking off from Heathrow (I was on the viewing deck of the terminal - this was back in the mid-70s; I was about 10). Practically the whole airport came to a standstill, even staff watched her with a lot of "wow!" expressions. In fact I lived under her flight route, and though she obviously didn't go supersonic over land, she was still very loud yet we couldn't really see her. My dad would look at his watch on hearing her and give a satisfied nod, would say, "On time!" and carry on with his day lol.
During the 1960s, it was thought that the Miami International Airport was too small for future aircraft and passenger demand. Being in tge middle of the city, there was no room to expand.
That was the primary driver to build this airport.
4:51 4:53
I’m former flight instructor out of Tamiami Executive in Miami. We used do practice ILS approaches and touch and goes out of TNT all the time. Use permits were free for GA aircraft from Dade County aviation.
Cool!
@@MentourNow there's a full size lighthouse in central London near docklands airport where Trafalgar house the company which operated all UK lighthouses trained their staff.
@Bigga Nigga Not so
@@leeoldershaw956 Google it.
@@johnarnell4241 I was there.
People were aware of Concorde in a way that no other aircraft seems to have caught the public's attention. I spent a week in Redding once, and every evening saw Concorde depart. Nobody complained. I was at horse events at Windsor Castle several times and everything stopped to watch Concorde fly over. Even in near JFK, when I was there a couple of times for non-travel related things, when Concorde took off everyone watched. You can probably find some people to complain, but most of the public loved to see such an extraordinary aircraft.
The issue with Concorde (or the 2707 and others) was the prospect of dozens of takeoff and landings every day. The novelty would have soon worn off. And the situation would have worsened if even noiser types of supersonic airplanes were introduced. Especially as subsonic planes kept getting quieter.
You have to be old enough to remember what it was like living anywhere near an airport in the 1960's and 1970's. I grew up in Orange County, California and I had a friend who lived on Balboa Island which was under the takeoff path for Orange County Airport. One time I was talking to her on the phone and suddenly there was an unbelievable roar and we literally had to stop talking until it passed. I was shocked and I asked her is that what every take off is like? She said "All day long". These were Air California 737-100's and Hughes Airwest DC-9-30's.
John Wayne lived near Balboa Island and he hated the airport. Ironically after he died in 1979 they named the airport after him. Although he probably wouldn't mind it so much now because of the super quiet engines, as well as the extreme noise abatement procedure that they now follow. The goal is to quickly get into the air from the short 5,700 foot (1.7 km) runway. They set the brakes and spool the engines to 90% then release the brakes, after rotation the initial climb is a very steep 21-25 degree angle (compared to the normal 10-15 degrees). At 800 ft (245 m) they cut the power to 10-15% thrust, which gives the sensation of falling. Combined with the fact that the engines sound like they have quit, many passengers assume that the plane is crashing, especially when the pilot neglects to make a pre-takeoff announcement about the procedure. They resume power only after reaching the ocean. Experiencing one of these takeoffs is even better than the Disneyland E-ticket rides that I grew up with.
My cat tried to catch Concorde one evening jumping as high as it could off the top of the fence little legs grasping at thin air while she orientated after take off to head west. Not the brightest of cats, but one of the most entertaining.
@@StevePemberton2 While I don't disagree with anything you've said, was the problem really one of Concorde being supersonic? It didn't happen over populated areas. I understand the problem of aircraft noise, but that wasn't limited to Concorde. On this side of the pond there was still a belief that the US wanted to stop commercial supersonic flights (by Concorde) because it just wasn't American enough.
@@michaelhart7569 There are quite a few misconceptions about this. People seem to have forgotten that the U.S. had a supersonic program called the Boeing 2707 which ran through May 1971. It was normally referred to as the SST in the U.S., even though that term also applies to any supersonic transport plane. Almost all of the initial public concerns and protests in the U.S. were mainly about the SST.
There were three separate concerns, airport noise, sonic booms, and environmental effects. Obviously it was only people who lived near major airports who were concerned about potential noise. However it was a large enough of a concern that as we learned in Mentour’s video a whole new airport was planned to be built outside of Miami, primarily for the purpose of keeping the SST and other supersonic planes away from populated areas.
Sonic booms meanwhile would affect people everywhere. Someone living quietly in a small town in Kansas who had never had to deal with aircraft noise would now possibly be subjected to sonic booms perhaps multiple times per day. And environmentalists were concerned about the ozone layer, which it was believed would be affected by the large number of expected supersonic flights.
As I mentioned in my comment, people are now looking in hindsight at Concorde which generally had only two or three flights per day to the U.S. But back in the 1960’s it was expected that supersonic planes would eventually be fully replacing subsonic jets, just as jets had recently replaced piston engine planes. So there was expected to be a lot of noise and pollution created by these planes.
Mentour mentioned in his video the sonic boom tests in Oklahoma in 1964 that created a lot of public concern. And in 1970 a book called SST and Sonic Boom Handbook was published which was very critical of the planned SST as well as Concorde. This book had a large effect on public opinion and is believed to be one of the reasons why the 2707 project was finally cancelled in 1971.
By the time Concorde flew laws were in place disallowing supersonic flight over populated areas. This restriction is true in most parts of the world as far as I know. I think supersonic flight is banned over Europe isn't it? I have had trouble determining this even though it seems like it would be a simple question, but I have not been able to determine it one way or the other.
@@michaelhart7569 The concorde took off under full afterburner. Yes, you read that right. A commercial plane with an afterburner for take off. It was incredibly loud.
One of Concorde’s regular flights arrived at LHR around 20:00 hours. It came in to land low turning to the east of Heathrow over the park at Crystal Palace during an open air concert conducted by Sir Charles Groves. He conceded that there was no point competing with the aircraft merely halting the music and saluting the aircraft as it passed over. The crowd of 10,000 people gave a terrific ovation to both the plane and Sir Charles.
We - in a primary school in Sydenham - whenever we were in the playground and it flew overhead on the approach to Heathrow, we downed tools (footballs and netballs and whatever) to gaze upward. A beautiful, beautiful sight.
I was once flying (helicopter)over a remote part of Western Nebraska when we passed over an old abandoned WW2 runway complete with hangars. Looked like something out of a post apocalyptic movie. Its important to remember and preserve our aviation history.
I agree. Aviation history is important.
Interesting, the only ones that come up on Google are located in towns where I had family living until recently. Those airfields are still in use. However, because of the sparse population, and overall year-round favorable flying weather, these fields were used for gliders and parachute training, which probably had adjunct runways and buildings at an appropriate distance which were used to facilitate training.
The only airbase in Eastern Wyoming is still active today.
@Bigga Nigga what, Lincoln?
@Bigga Nigga Which airport? I'm not aware of any airports built by NASA for bad weather. All of the designated alternate and emergency airports were existing airports.
@Bigga Nigga As Mentour explained in the video the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport was built by Miami-Dade County for supersonic aircraft and also for airline training flights. It was never on the list of Shuttle alternate or emergency landing sites. Although in an extreme emergency with no time to reach any other airports the Shuttle would have landed at any airport with at least a 10,000 ft runway.
The lack of computer based tools makes the rapid development of aircraft in the 1950s and 1960s even more remarkable. Great video Petter, thank you. 👍
most of the world we know was built with slide rules and speed squares
You have a broken idea of the value of computers.
No continuously changing software to waste time relearning. Of course, no other BS either (ethics training, diversity training, gender training, micro aggression training, ...)
Worth remembering that aircraft designed in the 50s and 60s were a lot less safe and capable than modern ones are. The aircraft were not as efficient, as rugged, as safe, as comfortable, as capable, and more. They lacked so much of the systems and equipment we consider standard today.
@@Raptor747But customer service was absolutely top notch...so at least you felt better about doing something dangerous.
As a native Floridian who has seen the state, almost paved from coast to coast, almost, I am glad the military has a few ranges here and there as it keeps the developers away and helps leave some corridors for wildlife movement. If there wasn't such a huge battle over 'The Everglades' for many years, developers would have long ago started backing up dump truck after dump truck and flattened it with bulldozers all the way to Florida Bay and sold them idiots ,swamp land. Now what is left of the Everglades more or less acts as a natural filter for the states runoff. It is still a beautiful place!
Thanks for sharing, you always find the different stories.
Urban sprawl is the worst for people and nature. Get motivated and grab others to promote more dense mixed use communities.
Special thanks to the sugar industry for continuing to wreck the Glades.
Very cool. I wish I could get my crap together and move out there, and I'd love to see the Everglades at least once. Bob Ross made it sound so beautiful. I didn't realize how fast Cali was dying until I was inundated by The 200% rent hikes and self-destructive government policies started making headlines in my own brain.
@@vagellan_8842 maybe get your crap together and go there for vacation? You can only enjoy swamp land so much.
Same in California. The Marine Corps operates Camp Pendleton which sits right between metro San Diego and metro Los Angeles. It's the only base on the U.S. Pacific coast where they can practice amphibious landings. And aside from the occasional hovercraft / helicopter / tank passing by, is pretty much pristine wilderness. There's even a herd of buffalo (bison) there (introduced by the San Diego Zoo). But developers keep trying to get it shut down so they can have a crack at all the prime oceanfront real estate it occupies.
I've got 36 entries in my log book for approaches into TNT back when it had an ILS.
Miami approach handled the traffic. As I recall there was a RAG site there.
Getting sequenced into the traffic was interesting, if your AC was slower than a swept wing jet. Unless you flew at night.
Flying from TMB, was convenient.
It was a nice facility.
As I remember, full stop / taxi back was the dividing line between landing fees or free, so all mine are either stop and gos, touch and gos or low approach procedures.
The drawback was procedure critique was during the "missed approach".. not ideal... But you could crank out a lot of approaches before you had to refuel.
I had an interesting experience there.
One afternoon, a swamp fire had broken out. It haddent been reported yet.. so I arranged with MIA approach to fly over the fire and let them plot the extremes of the fire area.
I started over the southern end of the fire, and got the first plot point, then headed for the other end. When I got their the controller was busy with other traffic, so I thought I'd just orbit the northern end.
On my first orbit I learned NOT TO FLY THROUGH THE SMOKE COLUMN. First was the not insignificant thermally induced turbulence.. and second was the cockpit full of smoke, and if that wasn't enough, there was the "dealing with unusual attitudes while blinded by the smoke".
Gag! Choke!
Lesson learned! :-)
Fun fact - the Florida Everglades is the only place in the world with both alligators and crocodiles living together. Alligators are relatively chill as long as you leave them alone, but crocodiles can be very aggressive.
The share that habitat because the Everglades are warm year-round. Crocodiles don't cope well with cold weather while alligators do. There were alligators on the rivers where I grew up in south Alabama and their range extends into the middle of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi as well as all of Louisiana.
@@Inkling777 - the range is further than you think. Even Oklahoma has a few alligators. Arkansas has a couple of thousand, and Texas has about half a million.
My ex wife must be related to crocodiles
@@47f0 Yeah, Gators used to swim up the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers for quite a ways back in the day.
I remember I was visiting Shark Valley, one of the best places to see gators and the was a gator in the parking lot mouth wide open sunning himself as people who were brave enough walked past him.
It's important to be able to spot the differences between them.
I'm certainly old enough to have seen Concorde many times. In fact went on it once, for one of the supersonic flights around the Bay of Biscay, taking-off and landing at LHR. Also saw the final flight at Bristol almost 20 years ago. :)
Very cool! I’m happy for you.
The nearest I ever got to Concorde was back in the 80s when I was travelling from LHR to JFK. The aircraft taking off just before mine was indeed that fascinating machine and it was great to watch it rise just before we took up our position on the runway.
@@MentourNow A friend of mine's late grandmother was one of the astronomers on board the 1973 flight of Concorde that chased the solar eclipse. Was fun to hear about her experience although it is sad that we no longer have the ability to pull that off again.
@@seraphina985We have the ability. It’s just not financially feasible, unfortunately.
There are concrete arrows all over American that date to the 20s and 30s where they built rhe original airmail servives. Towers with searchlights set above huge concrete arrows and radio beacons guided these frail planes.
There are so many relics of the aeronautical past hidden in plain site everywhere 😊
Indeed! We might cover them eventually.
@@MentourNowcool 😊
@@MentourNow Wow, please do that!
I've seen one vid by Calum covering this one :)
I grew up in South London - Sydenham - right under a major landing path into Heathrow. I remember in my primary school - in the 1970s - when we were out in the playground, every time Concorde flew overhead, we'd all stop our football and chasing and games and just gaze up. Even though it happened - I dunno - every couple of weeks? - it was always just so beautiful, so mesmerising, the Concorde.
I am old enough to have seen Concorde take off many times (also the Vulcan and SR71) The air would tear and fizz with energy.
It was very very cool indeed.🙂
Yes I saw it take off once - it was very impressive. Also in Devon every evening you'd hear a double thump which was Concorde (from Paris I think)
OK Boomer
@@matgeezer2094 I've stayed on Lundy Island a few times off the coast of Devon, out in the Bristol Channel. And could hear the double thump in the morning. Was taking off from LHR I'm pretty sure, and landing at JFK.
@@michaelturner4457 It was a distinctive noise
I was lucky enough to see one of the very last Vulcan display flights at Shuttleworth - an astonishing aircraft unlike anything else I ever saw at an airshow and an incredible sound. I saw concorde as a child, but only ever at altitude.
I didn't know about the airport but your discussion on the aviation history during the 1960s brought back a lot of good memories. As a kid I remember watching and reading about the Apollo missions, plans for the SST and the introduction of the C-5A Galaxy and of course, the Boeing 747. It was a fascinating time to see so many first in aviation. Thanks for stirring up those great memories.
I remember when the Concorde came to Boston's Logan Airport on a demonstration flight. At the time, we lived about ten miles northwest of the airport under one of Logan's approach paths - the planes were still at a fairly high altitute at that point, and we had gotten used to the noise. To this day, I still remember how loud the Concorde was when it passed over - and it was flying subsonic by then.
it wasn't called 'The' Concorde
@@ant2312 For better or worse, many people tend to place the word, "the," before an aircraft name. For example, "The Boeing 777 has very large engines," or, "The Airbus A320 is a fly-by-wire aircraft." Therefore, it seems reasonable that many people would also place, "the," before Concorde.
@@ant2312 "it wasn't called 'The' Concorde" Well it was in the movie "The Concorde... Airport '79" (or '80 if you lived in Britain).
I was directly under the same one, only several seconds before touchdown, when that demo tour found its way to LAX. I don't remember it being particularly loud, perhaps because everything with four engines (or three... or two) was particularly loud back then. Loud and smokey.
@@ant2312 @Ant I think this could be due to the fact that there were so few of them built and they were in use for such a relatively short period of time compared to most other well-known aircraft. People not familiar with aircraft types probably think there was only one built.
I also think Eternal Tech makes a valid point.
The FAA approved the rule forbidding civilian planes to fly supersonic flights above the ground just in the same year when the SST project was canceled. To impede US carriers to buy the Concorde for internal routes, where the Concorde could have a good value. And now that the companies that want to bring the supersonic fly back are from the US, they are working on retracting that rule.
No exactly true, if any supersonic flights are allowed over land in the US the noise signature will have to be significantly reduced, so no, there is no attempt to allow old school supersonic aircraft to fly over the US.
Even smallish fighter jets had to get special permission recently to exceed the speed of sound over land, after that business jet pilot became incapacitated.
I lived in London (Putney and Wimbledon), and we could often hear when the Concord started at LHR some 8 - 10 km away. Flying it was cramped and claustrophobic. The acceleration was great.
"cramped and claustrophobic" In terms of diameter, Concorde was about midway between the DC-3 and the 5-across DC-9.
I lived in Hounslow for a while, 5km from the runway end. The house had double glazing, and while you could *hear* other planes coming and going while indoors, when Concorde flew over, you basically had to pause conversations until it had gone.
@@davewilson4493 Can well believe…
@@davewilson4493I grew up just a couple miles from an airport. It was normal for us to feel the house shake by planes landing. Occasionally one would be uncomfortably low. In my early 20’s, I rented the house from my parents. FedEx built themselves an area there. The airport expanded and I could see the FedEx tails from my driveway. The worst part was when they fired up the engines at 3 am. I ended up moving after 6 months. It was just too disruptive to my sleep. I had to get up at 5 am for work so I always felt sleep deprived.
That was fascinating, thank you! I've been by it several times, and new it was incomplete, but never knew the full story behind it.
Also, all those shots of Pan Am planes made me really nostalgic. Several members of my family worked for Pan Am's engineering department in Miami, and that was always our airline of choice when I was a kid.
I live in Polk county Florida not far from the bombing range in Avon Park. A lot of military training from MacDill AFB happens around here, from Army paratroopers doing jump training and landing in fields near Lakeland Linder, to fighter jets zipping around above.
There are countless general aviation airports and strips in central Florida. I work in a service trade, and have been to homes that are in aviation communities. These communities have their own runway and many homes have actual hangars built on them!
If you’re interested in covering this accident, in early March of this year two small aircraft collided over Winter Haven Airport. The planes landed in a nearby lake. 4 people were killed. The NTSB released a report at the end of March. I heard the collision as I was driving up Lake Alfred rd which is next to Lake Hartridge when it happened.
I've seen it many times, i did my flight training to the east of it, and east-west flights along that little road near it are common for your first cross-country flights. Its sort of a landmark. (There is also a testing circuit a little bit to the west for motorcycles)
Thanks for sharing!
@BiggaNigga69 the local rumor was that it was a Boeing test facility
I was a serving police officer during the late 1970s and 1980s over her in the UK and one of the British Airways Concordes made a promotional visit to our local airport (Newcastle-upon-Tyne). The aeroplane stayed overnight and we were permitted to have a close look at the amazing craft after the crowds had left. The captain of Concorde asked my colleague and I if we would like to have a look in the cabin and cockpit. What an amazing experience!! Even got to sit in the “drivers seat” The captain informed us that he would try and use the afterburners when they did their final flypast the next day. Absolutely brilliant and a lovely guy. I have since seen him being interviewed on tv several times - unfortunately usually for his expert opinion on the Paris tragedy. Love the channel. Take care.
I really like this video. You combine history, environmental issues, and make it so interesting. Keep up the great work!
The public's general response to supersonic flight can be summed up by Dr Ian Malcolm's quote: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."
It saddens me that so many people quote Malcolm when Chang said it first in ST:VI
@@MrTaxiRobCancel Malcom for plagiarism.
@@MrTaxiRob What is ST:VI?
@@MrTaxiRob well it makes us happy that you're so verklempt
over such a non-issue.
@@chouseificationsaddened further by your gleeful support of unoriginal thinking
During the 70s Montreal built Mirabel and Toronto set aside land in nearby Pickering because they thought their existing airports would be overwhelmed. Mirabel is now a test site for new aircraft and the land un Pickering is still vacant. Did other cities around the world do that?
I’ve heard a lot about Mirabel. It might become a video in itself one day
Mirabel never realized its imagined potential as a passenger airport, but it’s the location of final assembly for the Airbus A220 (C series). Also, Spain has its Ciudad Real airport white elephant.
@@citylimits8927 yes, I wondered if all major cities were planning airports far from the city centre during the 70s. Maybe New York City was planning one in Connecticut
@@earthsteward9, I know in the early 90s, Alabama was planning one to rival KATL in Buxahatchee Creek that was supposed to serve both Birmingham and Montgomery.
The Peotone Airport 40 miles south of Chicago has long been an off-again/on-again airport project for years. The Illinois Department of Transportation bought much of the land around an existing airport to allow building a bigger commercial airport. Apparently it's back on again. Bult Field (C56 if you want to look it up on your charts) is the existing airport..
I personally like the historical stories. There is so much that went on back in the early days of aviation that we still feel the effects of today.
I love his passion especially when he was describing the Concord engines. That right there is why I watch this channel.
Good enough for standing mile drag races, with one mile shut down zone. Excellent for motor racing...
I saw the Concorde take off from Cardiff Airport as a child, they used to allow folk to park at the end of the runway in a layby where the aircraft would fly almost directly overhead.
I remember standing on the back seat of my parents car, through the sunroof watching it roll towards us down the runway.
Then moments later I was cowering in the footwell screaming as it flew overhead, it was truly a terrifying experience as a kid.
There were no words for how loud those olympus engines were, it was incredible.
It has another purpose-as an emergency diversion airport. I watched a documentary where the pilot of a light plane suffered a heart attack. That left his elderly wife, who knew nothing about flying, at the controls. ATC quickly scrambled an identical plane with an experienced pilot on board. Flying alongside, he talked her down using that long, isolated runway. She bounced the plane a few times touching down but managed to land it. You might want to do shows on similar non-pilot landing incidents.
Did the husband survive, or didn't they say?
@@wayneyadams If it was the one I'm familiar with, no the pilot, the lady's husband, died in the left seat. The lady was able to maintain her composure on the most horrible day of her life and follow the instructions from the pilot in the escorting airplane to land the airplane without damage. I saw this particular incident on TH-cam.
Imagine being fortunate enough to find yourself near this place when you're out of landing options.
I couldn't imagine myself not knowing all available landing options along any flight path I might take.
Imagine being a single mother with a toothache who can't afford a dentist because the electric bill is due and the money was wasted on this rather than a social support system.
@@johnsmith1474 maybe go protest there
@@johnsmith1474Imagine having children before you’re financially stable enough to do so, then asking me to give up my hard earned money…..
@@thetowndrunk988 Imagine being the town drunk
Flying out of OPF, used the TNT approaches during my training and checkride for FAA ATP. Tnis was back in... (wait... am I that old?). Always wondered why they built the thing and my CFI wasn't quite sure. Now I know. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Great job!
Your teaser post says this was “CRAZY”. In my opinion it was far from that. The 60’s was in MY generation’s greatest achievements. We haven’t come close since have we?
Great video.
I lived where Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport now stands. Concorde was the only plane to shake the house, though she was a wonderful sight to see land.
Have you ever thought about doing a video on Juan Trippe? He was a genius. 😉🇬🇧🇺🇦
I used to study at a university located just West of Roissy CDG, and Concorde was not just noisier than other jets. Every day at 10:15am, the noise was so loud, it couldn't be confused with anything else. That was such a special time, still, good memories.
Growing up in the area, I very much remember the Jet Port. To a kid, what was even better was the test facility for Aerojet General. They used to haul the Saturn V engines through my neighborhood out to it. They would run the engines a lot and some times at night. You could see the glow in the sky and hear them. I still have some B&W photos of the engines being hauled. We later lived on the southern gulf coast and I was thrilled to see the B-52s and F4s out of McDill AFB flying low over our house on their way to Avon Park bombing range. As I go older I flew a lot with my dad and we were able to cross Avon Park and see the fake airfields. Irony, I eventually became an engineer for McDonnell Douglas and Boeing. I happened upon a lot of drawings and renderings of the Douglas SST that were to be thrown out. I still have them. I also remember sonic booms from military aircraft almost every day back then. Side note, the Concord had to go subsonic before entering American airspace.
In Poland there was a large free-standing road bridge (flyover) in the middle of nowhere because they did not manage to build a road. And such a monument stood for years
Welcome to South Africa...
I grew up one county west of Avon Park and Sebring, Florida. I used to see the B52s flying overhead from the coast on the way to the bombing range in Avon Park.
13:21 yep, i've seen and heard a few concordes taking off from EGLL. sounded like a giant welding torch, only MUCH louder, due to the extreme exhaust speed. on one occasion that noise triggered lots of car alarms, and on another occasion i saw the exhaust gas actually glowing, it was so hot. that was at hatton cross, which is close to EGLL09R, and that concorde was still pretty low, less than 1000 ft AGL. don't remember seeing mach diamonds, tho'
another time i saw a concorde leaving behind a clearly visible trail of brown nitrous oxides. i've never seen such a trail behind any other airliner.
oh, and before i forget... years later i went to a museum in germany where they have both a french concorde and a russian Tu-144. and yes, i went into both. not much space in there.
I stayed at a friend's house in Woking (Surrey, UK) once when Concord was taking off from Heathrow and it was so loud - on the ground - that we could barely hear each other talk. It was insanely loud. I was also living in Brixton (South London) the year Concord was decommissioned and was standing at the bus stop on the final day, watching multiple Concords fly above, towards Heathrow. That was memorable. Never flew in one, though.
I live in Miami and have been to Dade-Collier twice. It's very impressive.
The Avon Park range you mentioned in this video holds a place in my heart. It’s where I witnessed a school bus fly. I was lucky enough to observe live-fire training there and the poor bus was a target. I’m also a native Floridian and yes it’s true: If there’s water there’s an alligator in there somewhere. You may not see him but he definitely sees you 😂
There is a MythBusters episode where they aim a 747 engine at a school bus. It is momentarily airborne.
Similar expectations were one of the reasons the city of Montreal built a huge airport well away from the city in Mirabel, and appropriated a massive amount of farmland to have a big noise buffer zone around it.
Instead the airport was hardly used, and in part due to conflicts between different level of governments the necessary transport links between it and the city of Montreal never happened (rail link to downtown, more direct highway route) all passenger operations were consolidated closer to the city at YUL.
Given noise issues, and also the real estate cost issues / housing crisis going on now, an airport-sized transit-oriented housing development in YUL's space would be looking super good right now with air travel at Mirabel instead.
I grew up in Oshkosh, WI and spent every summer in the seventies and eighties at the airport. During one of the last Airventure (before they called it that) flyins that the Concorde came to, I stumbled onto it parked in the exhibition area. They were just loaded up for a short hop into Canada where they could go supersonic. The crowd was behind the jet maybe fifty feet past the tail. As they got ready to taxi out, I wondered where the tug was. Then they started the engines!
They taxied out under their own power with several hundred of us standing behind it. It was they most intense visceral experience I've ever had. The noise was indescribable. My gut was pounded. The temperature was probably about 130ºF and the kerosene fumes were almost overpowering!
Good times...
And if I recall correctly, at the time the longest runway there was around 6000 feet. They said it was one foot shorter than the minimum needed...
Some years earlier, I was standing at the end of the main runway in the grass when it landed toward me. They stopped when the nose wheel was almost at the end of the pavement. I was looking up at the underside of the nose.
Seems like a very similar philosophy to Walt Disney buying up huge tracts of swampland near Orlando in the same era. (And Disney's original master plan actually called for an international airport on property, near the south end. They built a little one with a single short runway in between the current sites of the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, now used as a storage area.)
Excellent content Petter, something different but highly relevant and a great bit of aviation history, keep up the great work!
I've been there in 1970, we used it for a college "fly in" promoting aviation programs at Florida's community colleges.
I grew up very close to the jetport. We used to go out there and shoot guns and things like that it was a lot of fun
Used that airport a couple of times to do touch and goes on the DC8 and B727 in the mid 90s. Great airport.
In 1989 when I was in the USCG I was stationed on the PT. Turner out of Newport, RI. We were in Boston all the time and as I was also a graduate of a flight university in NH I LOVE anything aviation. This of course included the Concorde. I had models of it, knew all the stats, etc.. We would be out in the bay in Boston literally just off the runway and watch the Concorde take off several times a week. I LOVED that!!! Master Chief would always blow the horn when it flew over. It was still louder than the horn. LOL GREAT memories of that plane.
Greg
Great video! I'm impressed that you actually did the research and showed actual documents/newspaper clippings from the 60's. I've seen some other videos on this airport where those that made the video were too lazy to do research and just show random stock video. Sadly, this has become a pattern with many TH-cam channels today. You just gained a new subscriber!
So I've flown over/by this airport many a time, the Everglades is typically the primary area for a lot of training traffic, since in the event something goes wrong there is very little worry of civilian collateral damage. It did throw me for a loop seeing it for the first time out there in the middle of virtually nowhere, I asked my CFI about it and he gave me the rundown on its history and its a pretty interesting footnote in aviation history. I've also heard a bit of scuttlebutt recently that there are talks about using it for testing of hypersonic drones as well given its remoteness which is pretty interesting as well.
Awww yeah! Avon Park Bombing & Target range! Went there a few times when I was in the Florida Army National Guard. We actually saw some unexplained lights when we were out there one weekend. It wasn't the GA airport to the Northeast either, they lingered way to long to be any approaching aircraft.
I really appreciated this look at aviation history . Had a friend who worked at vultee/ avco and among planes he worked on included the b1b.
Thanks Petter. Hopefully a better supersonic experience isn't too many years away.
Yes! That would be cool
@@MentourNow And it's called Starship. ;)
@@chipdale490 Sure…that’ll happen. I can sell you the Everglades if you’re interested. 😜
Man, you are the the David Attenburogh of aviation nerdyness! Scrolling the videos on your channel thinking, oh god, that must be the dullest video ever and still making me watch 21 minutes about a half-abandoned airport in Florida and remarkably finding every minute of it entertaining, that documentary skills!
Concorde was part of my life as a kid, growing up near Heathrow you would see it in the sky every day. I even went to the airport to watch it take of on its maiden commercial flight. I also used to fish on a small river at the end of the runway, and when she took off above you, the sound was a phenomenal crackle that would take your breath away.
that was a good one. My flight instructor had me doing a cross country to that airport from the Marco Island airport. We were to go there and then go on over to Fort Lauderdale and back on a cross country. Unfortunately we were fogged out and didn't get to go but I did the work to check it out. It's pretty interesting. I've also driven to it. It was great to see the story on this. Thanks for the good work.
Brings back a great memory. My father was a check airman for Eastern Air Lines back in the 1970s. Since Level D simulators weren't around yet, the airlines still used real airplanes for check rides and currency reviews for their pilots. Because the aircraft were needed for line flying during the day most of the check rides were done late at night. I had just received my Private Pilot license in 1972 and my father let my ride in the jump seat of a 727 while he gave a check ride to a line captain. The four of us (Pilot, Father, Flight Engineer and me in the jump seat) took off sometime after midnight. If you've never been in an empty 727 with only four people aboard, it felt like a rocket when taking off. We flew to the Dade-Collier Jetport to test the pilot's ability to shoot approaches. There is possibly no place on earth darker than the Everglades to fly at night. At least it seemed so to me. It is almost shocking when the Jetport lights literally leap out at you during final approach. I'll never forget the experience. Thanks for the historical perspective and bringing back a great personal memory. 👍👍👍
"some plane were obsolete sometime just months after entering service"
I guess Bristol Britannia is the best exemple
Yeah, that was a cool plane though.
@@MentourNowfirst aircraft I ever flew on, Luton to Barcelona
Hopefully it will make the cut for the Mentour Classics series
There was another attempt to build an airport at the western edge of the city. There were two runways, one was north-south (2,600 ft) designated 18 &36, the other was east-west (2,600 ft) designated 09 & 27. The idea was to bus people to and from the airport. It also failed, but we used to use it for star gazing parties. Since it is at the edge of the everglades there is a nice dark sky looking west and plenty of room to set up telescopes.
It's called "Opa Locka West."
Lat: 25°57'8.98"N
Lon: 80°25'7.06"W
I did my training on the Lockheed Electra (L188) out there, with Miami based Cargo carrier Fleming International. Later to become CAM Air. They had an ILS at that time (1982) and we understood that it was slated as the second Miami/ South Florida Airport. I've never heard this SST connection but it makes sense because the thinking back then was all about progress and not fuel savings.
Back when I learnt how to fly, TNT still had an ILS approach on runway 09 along with working beacons and of course the RNAV approaches on 09 and 27.
Nowadays, I use this airport to teach students how to land and practice emergency procedures.
I saw and heard the Concorde take off from JFK in 2000…you felt it in your chest and just couldn’t help but be in awe of that beautiful machine!
I was lucky enough to see Concord take off and land several times and i was also lucky enough to hear her sonic boom off the coast of Brazil . Beautiful aircraft
Best aviation channel on TH-cam by far!!! Love your work!
I recently traveled from Sogndal airport in Norway, it’s a small regional airport on the side of a mountain connected by a long winding road to Sogndal. With only a few small flights everyday, most people only show up about 30 minutes before their flight. Me and my friends had nothing to do, so we showed up 6 hours before our flight 😂. The three staff at the airport were surprised that we had shown up so early. After we went through security, they went home! We were left alone in this tiny airport in the middle of nowhere, quite a surreal experience!
Another fine video, Thank you. I enjoyed the fact that your title reflects perhaps that the Dade Collier Air field wasnt in use for very long, but moreover your reminder that simulators werent as advanced as today. PanAm used this field during training and transition to 74’s. We stayed in Key Biscayne, somewhat outside the madness of Miami, shuttled over for ToGos daily.
It never ceases to amaze me that while every other manufacturing industry has been able to bring new products to market faster and faster as the decades have gone by, the aircraft manufacturing industry has instead gotten slower and slower.
I think it would make an interesting video to investigate why and how aviation has become such an anomaly in this way compared to all other technology industries.
It all has to do with safety. Aircraft manufacturing and its processes are so heavily regulated that it takes decades to get it made, certified and released.
On top of that, it’s so expensive to make s new design that every new unit can literary make or break the manufacturer so they MUST get it right.
I work in the aircraft industry and Mentour is spot on. It takes a long time to design, manufacture, test, refine and test again. Then there are certificates to get and more certificates. It takes years. That said were still flying things we designed decades ago or using for power generation or on ships. Its a business were everything is measured in years.
@@MentourNow One would think the impact of increased regulations should be offset by all the new available technology to help design, test, and manufacture new designs. Modern engineering software alone makes any engineering project much easier, faster, more efficient than it was in the 1960's, 70's, or 80's.
It's not like safety concerns are a new factor. They are more heavily scrutinized for new aircraft today, but the same can be said for many other types of manufacturing, such as automobiles or medical equipment.
Also, most of the change in time to market for new aircraft seemed to happen all of a sudden. From the begining of the jet age through the end of the century, new airplane models were brought to market in fairly consistent amounts of time. Then in the next decade between 2000 and 2010, suddenly they got a lot slower. It has continued to get even slower since, but what happened in the first decade of the 2000's which caused such a major change then? You could say 9/11, but the safety of events of that day had nearly nothing to do with aircraft design, save for maybe cockpit doors.
Thanks for the reply, Petter! Have a nice weekend and good vacation time.
Not every other manufacturing industry. In for example medtech and medicine, it also takes a lot longer to get products to the market than before, and it's for the same reason - safety.
The incredible safety record of the civilian aviation industry is itself a modern marvel. I think other industries have much to learn from the rigorous process to create a reliable machines capable of operating in the harshest of environments with many decade lifespans.
It's the opposite of "throw away culture" we have in consumer goods.
in the late 80s and early 90s, I had the pleasure to se and hear the Concorde in UK. It sounded like a squadron of jet fighters taking off.
👍👍 Very interesting story - I've heard a few snippets before - but never in such detail - thank you so much!
Petter, when you said at the beginning that the airport had been repurposed I immediately thought drag racing strip (AKA an Air Canada magnet).
I got to watch Concorde take off and land at Oshkosh, and to hear it over London. Impressive!
That Pan Am Tu-144 at 10:21 must be unique! (Good ol' Photoshop).
I remember watching and hearing Concorde taking off from NCL. The sound of four Rolls Royce Olympus engines with afterburner engaged was incredible!
It would also occasionally overfly where I worked about ten miles away.
I have some idea of how loud the Concorde must have been taking off. In 1966 for a few weeks, I was in a security post right at the north end of the DaNang airfield. The F-4 Phantom IIs were on full afterburner on their J-79 engines as they roared overhead. Night takeoffs were especially spectacular.
Fun trivia: An aft-turbofan derivative of the J79, the CJ805-23, powered the Convair 990 airliners
That phone call clip from JFK pretty much explains the sudden death of concorde sales.
I don't believe you ever mentioned whether this was an alternative landing spot for the Space Shuttle.
Hello captain, love your content.
If it's possible try to do more videos about failures in the industry. Like the airport in Berlin and now that one.
A video about the short history of the 2707 will be amazing.
Good landings my friend ✌🏻
Hey @Mentour Now! Speaking of the Convair 990, I'd really enjoy hearing your thoughts on the Rolls Royce Conway engines, or actually, the introduction of ducted fans and bypass ducts to jet engines, in general... Both utilitarian higher bypass ratio types, and supersonic optimized high performance types. I've just never seen anyone spend much time talking about what a significant development it was, realizing that moving MORE air at slower, or, more attainable and efficient speeds is an extremely effective way of increasing STATIC thrust for a given amount of fuel burn. I've even read that this was even thought of during the theorizing of the first turbojet designs in the '30's, but simpler designs were chosen for production for the first years because it was the wild-west of aerodynamics and aerospace in general at the time and engineers wanted to master the jet-cycle first.
Awesome .. love your work!
The Martin 404 was a great plane. My first flight was on one between Marietta, Ohio, and Lynchburg, Virginia. Piedmont Airlines. Loud, slow, and rough, but with a legendary safety record.
Very interesting content, as usual 👌 Thank you Petter 👍
Glad you enjoyed it! 💕
Fascinating! You really are the best!
Rob
Very enlightening as usual Petter, thank you!
As somebody that grew up dreaming of being a pilot, I love Boeing - I really do. The history of aircraft carrying their name is like seeing a snapshot of what humanity can achieve in X amount of time. I hope they find the money (and the will) to do it again.
Awesome delivery yet again!
Great story, thanks for pulling the info together and presenting it in this succinct video.
*Might as well do a video on Mirabel Airport (CYMX) north of Montreal - at one time, it had the largest area overall on this planet for an airport.*
*I have a soft spot for YMX as that is where we landed as immigrants back o August 5th, 1979. Flew pout of there many times to Europe, and plenty more to the Caribbean on vacation with Nationair and Transat. A couple of my friends worked at the control tower up to its closure*
I used to live in Reading, 30 ish miles west of LHR.... between 1976 and 1983 all lessons at school ground to a halt a few minutes past 11:00 as the daily Concorde flight to the US passed overhead....
I have very fond memories of seeing/hearing Concorde when I lived in Maidenhead in the late nineties and early 2000s. Was a definitely different sound to traditional airplanes.
The Space Shuttle runway in Florida is often referred to by Kennedy Space Center employees as the "Gator Tanning Facility".
If I were to build my own private airport, that's exactly where I'd build it -- in the middle of a ginormous flat expanse, and as low an altitude as I could find, and where ice and snow is rare.
And I'd give it a super long runway, way longer than I'd ever need, just to give me plenty of runway to land, and to abort my takeoff even after V2.
I remember going to Dade Collier airport and not only doing touch & gos when I was learning back in the late 70s, but friends of mine and I would grab our rental airplanes after we got our tickets and take astronomy groups outside the lights of Miami in Fort Lauderdale, and set up large telescopes after getting permission from the Port Authority.
The reduction in light was exceptionally nice out in the middle of the state where, on the nights that Dade Collier was not being used by the major airlines for practice, we could go and enjoy the night skies. I do miss those days.
Only seen vids of concorde take off but did see her in flight. They came to nashville for a special flight. On the way out they looped downtown nashville several times . Such a graceful beautiful plane.
When I was flying for PanAm in the '80s, we took the three-holer out to TNT and did figure 8 visuals to touch-and-gos. Probably the last time any major airline did training in an actual aircraft.
Great place to take students to practice. Go there quite often.
A couple of decades ago, I worked (in a non-aviation-related field) at the site of another of those "middle of nowhere" airfields in Florida, 06FA William Gwinn airport. The facility that included the airport was built in the 1950s by Pratt & Whitney to build the J58 engine that powered the SR-71. Its being "in the middle of nowhere" was because of the secrecy of the program.
I’ve drive on that run for a car event. It is in the middle of the Everglades.
Grew up in South Florida, so I remember the environmental protests that went along with this place. We snuck on there a few times when I was a teenager.
As a former resident of Wheatridge, a suburb of Denver, Colorado, AND directly under the path of about half the flights into or out of Denver International, I can assure you that the sound of a jet with afterburners "shredding the atmosphere to pieces" is really AWESOME and totally cool... once... About the time it becomes such a regular occurrence that you start to stop mid-conversation rather than attempt to outshout the jets rattling the windows throughout your house and shaking the TV set so badly that it loses signal... It's not so damn cool anymore.
Just try nursing ONE migraine through the moment that you're not sure if it's a jet, a nearby lightning strike, or an earthquake rattling your eye-teeth loose from your hemorrhoids...
AND think about that... It doesn't need to be quite as loud and obnoxious as some folks would lead you to believe with the spectacular pictures left over from broken windows and shattered storefronts or other "freakish" damage caused by the oddities of a few sonic booms just too low or in just the right circumstances to create unusual havoc...
We currently live in a time with turbo-fan engines and noise restrictions on the pilots, and I haven't had to stop talking mid-conversation in more than a decade. Other than the occasional Drug Enforcement helicopter scanning for pot-grows in the woods or a rescue helicopter trying to find some poor hiker lost in the woods or on a mountain... We rarely hear enough of an aircraft to even acknowledge that there's air traffic overhead... AND frankly, as cool as airplanes and flying are, I'm ABSOLUTELY HAPPY living like that.
They have air shows for things like supersonic fighters and bombers and can demonstrate the AWESOME sounds out where people GO specifically because they want to see and experience that kind of thing. ;o)
>
.
WOW! Just how often do jets with afterburners shred the atmosphere to pieces at Denver International Airport? When I worked for the airline, I flew into and out of many large commercial aviation airports around the country and have NEVER, not once, EVER seen -- or heard -- a jet with afterburning engines operating into or out of any of those commercial airports. At one time, Ellington Field south of Houston did have some commercial flights and the Air Force Reserve F-101's and F-102's shared that field, but it started life as an Air Force base onto which some commercial traffic was allowed to operate. It was shared by Continental which used some DC-9's to get passengers from south Houston and the Galveston areas up to IAH so the paying customers didn't have to drive.
@@thewaywardwind548 Well, this was when I was a small child... BUT multiple times a day, EVERY HOUSE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD had the same deep, visceral SHUDDER that was too fast a vibration to be an earthquake, but rattled your eye-teeth loose just the same as one. Jewels would "jump" off their hangings in chandaliers in the nicer houses, windows regularly just cracked or shattered, various little fittings would even work their way loose for no other explanation what so ever...
Even ordinary Commercial craft did that... AND when the Air Force DID have afterburners going on overhead (and it was rare but DID happen) it was just that much worse... The air traffic could wake you from a solid sleep with Prince Valium at 2 AM... AND there was no having a conversation for longer than 40 minutes or there was another flight somehow to at least stop you bothering to try and out shout it...
Trust me... Ordinary jets don't NEED afterburners to be VERY VERY UNCOOL in a fairly short order if you happen to live directly under their flight paths. I don't need a non-stop flow of super-sonics right overhead to know how much worse that would get and how much MORE I'd burn with rage every time someone said, "That sound doesn't ever get old"...
I promise you... Yes. Yes, it gets VERY old, SURPRISINGLY quickly. ;o)