He Bought a Fighter Jet Instead of a Sports Car - L39 Albatros

Video from the channel BeSnappy about Aero L-39 Albatros, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 8:37. Language: English. Video type: Onboard.

At the Wings Over Shellharbour airshow in Australia, pilot Mark Hall of the company JetFlight shows a 1986 Aero L-39 Albatros and explains how to get into the front cockpit. Steps and yellow lines mark where to place your feet. To climb in you have to hold on to the backrest and the windscreen, never the canopy, because that part is movable.

Hall goes through the checklist with a sweep across the cockpit: he starts on the left, with the fuel lever and throttle, and finishes on the right, at the emergency hydraulic valves. To start up, a small auxiliary engine is fired up first, which only supplies air to spin up the main engine. Ignition occurs about 20 seconds later. According to Hall, the aircraft burns about 12 litres per minute and its small tanks give it around two hours of range. The ejection seats are disarmed and no parachute is carried. In case of a failure, they rely on its great gliding capability: about 200 km/h with a glide slope of close to 2°.

Hall is a retired airline pilot with 26,000 flight hours and has made 176 flights in a P-51 Mustang. He now uses the aircraft for experience flights in the Illawarra area. He explains how G-force is countered by combining breathing with tensing the large muscles. Passengers usually withstand between 4 and 6 G, although the aircraft can take about 10 G.