This is a Cessna 310, or something similar, just after it buzzed the Financial at well under Minimum Safe Altitude, which in this case is 1000-something feet above ground level.
Escaping to the northeast:
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Now, do I have your tail number? No I don’t. So you win this round, Flyboy.
Regardless, I cry foul.
Until next time…
(And try to not kill yourself or your passengers or any ground-dwellers before then.)
I don’t know, the FAA doesn’t seem to mind this kind of hot dogging so who am I to complain:
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Here’s what it looks like from inside.
Sometimes these birds land in the water due to engine trouble and then the Coast Guard tows them to shore.
It’s a living, I s’pose…
I’ll tell you, I have no objection in particular about Airbus A380 superjumbo jets flying into and out of SFO, but over the past few years the arrival of this a/c got oversold, way oversold, by SFO, the old mayor’s office and the new mayor’s office.
They went on and on about how farsighted SFO was to become “A380-ready,” but after these kinds of taxiway incidents worldwide, I gotta ask:
Where’s your Messiah now, SFO?
Oh, here it is, at the Paris Air Show, bumping into buildings ‘n stuff. Sacre Bleu – Une Autre Allision!
Click to expand – via Niek van der Zande
(Don’t call it a wing fence (or winglet or sharklet) the way some journalists do, oh no, call it a wingtip fence. Thusly: “The Superjumbo jet just lost another wingtip fence.)
“While the crew had been informed that the taxiway was clear for the A380, said Airbus, and the aircraft was on the centreline, it hit a building belonging to Aeroports de Paris.”
Oh well.
Hey SFO, why don’t you actually do something by getting your runways farther apart so you’ll be future-ready instead of just A380-ready?
Just asking, SFO Bro.
Is new Terminal 2 at SFO really set to “dazzle?”
Sadly no. It’s just another airport terminal right? Let’s keep things in sperpective.
The other dazzling piece of news coming up from Millbrae is Air France saying it will fly in an A380 superjumbo daily from gay Paris during Tourist Season 2011.
The best guess is that the A380 burns about 3% per passenger less than the slightly smaller competition from Boeing. Is that something to get excited about? Not really.
Oh, here we go, here’s an Air France Airbus A380 making friends in New Yawk just yesterday. What a bully! (The YouTube view count just went from 303 views five minutes ago up to 17,000, so let’s call that going viral.)
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Them A380′s are big, non?
Let’s hope that SFO can manage these big rigs better than JFK!
Anyway, to review, SFO’s New Terminal Two is Just an Another Airport Terminal, SFO’s New Air France A380 Jet is Just Another Jet.
No alarms, no surprises…
“Air France Flight 7 F-HPJD bound for Paris, was taxiing on a runway when its left wingtip struck the tail of Comair Flight 6293, which had just landed from Boston and was taxiing to its gate at Kennedy, one of the nation’s busiest airports…”
If you’re flying over San Francisco less than 500 feet above the hills and trees and whatnot, then you’re flat-hatting.
And that’s not good, is it?
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Is this trip really necessary?
Just discovered the Great Military Observation Tower of the Presidio is no more. It jutted above the eucaluptus so high, they painted it #17875 White and #12197 Aviation Orange, just like Sutro Tower. But now the sweet tower is gone.
You could see the whole bay area up there – probably with a similar view that you’d get atop the PG&E Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. And it was accessible – you could just hop the fence while minding the concertina wire and then use the internal staircase to get to the platform up top. It was sweet:
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But then then took out the first flight of stairs so you couldn’t just walk up the thing and then they put up a cell tower right next door and then, not too long ago, they just took the observation tower down.
So here’s the situation today. Cell tower on the right, and the site of the observation tower (the now-empty square) on the right:
I think the above shot from Google Maps is from 9-11-2010. (Google has no hassles photographing the Presidio from above, of course.)
Anyway, here’s how it looks from Ashbury Heights – the cell tower is there, but the observation tower, Mount Sutro’s Little Buddy, is all gone:
Oh well.
Now back in the day, you could shimmy over a nine-foot cyclone fence and then just walk up the staircase to the top of this observation tower the U.S. Army used to operate in the Presidio. It was the coolest vantage point in town.
But now the barbed concertina wire is thicker than ever and the wobbly stairs up to the first landing have been removed. And perhaps there are new systems in place that would assist the park police as they catch any monkey trying to shimmy up to the top. (Perhaps means definitely, BTW.)
Oh well. It’s painted Sutro Tower white and red because it’s a hazard to aerial navigation peeking just above the Eucalyptus the way it do. Last time I was there, you could tell that people would go up to drink beer and have sex and whatnot.
You’d think the phone companies would have used this old tower for cell antennas but perhaps this old thing is too old. There’s a new tower right next door but there’s not enough room to party up there even if you could try. The old tower has a roomy platform on top, made for a bunch of generals and majors to reconnoiter and whatnot.
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Oh well, it’s the end of an era….
Here’s what you can’t do with your aircraft’s tail number. What you can’t do is get all creative to the point where people can’t read it.
‘Cause when you go flat-hatting over San Francisco’s Ferry Building in your aging Piper PA-34-200T Seneca II, you need to have your license plate legible for tout le monde to see. That’s how the system works.
What you can’t do is take away the middle part of the ID numbers leaving all the 0′s, 3′s, 6′s, and 8′s looking alike. That don’t fly.
The turbocharged Piper Seneca II, for the times when your Saratoga can’t get you there fast enough:
Click to expand, not that it will help legibility.
Anyway, people need to know who pilots are for the times they land on the wrong end of the runway ‘n stuff.
D’accord? Oui, d’accord.
Now, Go Forth And Sin No More.
Never an unkind word need be said/
about your life overhead
Not even sure what to call this ex-military observation tower as I am unaware of its name. But I’ll tell you, the views from up there are terrific and with none of those pesky trees in the way. It’s painted FAA red and white like Sutro Tower for a reason – it’s a hazard to navigation it’s so high.
Now, you can’t go there legally I don’t think, judging by the signs that I’m sure are posted on the fence you’d need to climb over to begin your climb. Speaking of which, this thing is all wobbly by design. And that’s fine, but you don’t know how it’s been maintained over the decades. Think about that if you try to climb up.
What’s it still doing standing above the eucalyptus if it no longer has a purpose?
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Last time I was up, there were empty beer cans strewn about, so that’s proof that somebody goes up there sometimes. Oh well.
You’ll just have to bide your time and wait for the Golden Gate Bridge to open up to climbers, whenever that happens…
