I remember when my dad was in the Air Force. He was stationed at Yokota AFB Japan. Imagine flying on one of these all the way back to the staes. :D multiple times. :)
Look at that !!! Watching the aircraft awaiting clearance for take off is a sight to behold but the best part is the power and sound of those engines revving up and the entire ground shaking as the plane shoots down the runway !!!! Very good video.
College buddy of mine is a controller at ROA and said the same thing that they do arrive on occasion. Last week a C-17 did a go around "break away" tactical arrival kind of thing at 2000 feet and less than a half mile from the threshold. Awesome aircraft.
When flying on IFR, you are usually cleared to a specific flight level initially until you clear a specific area and you can then be cleared to another level. An unrestricted climb allows you to go directly to the flight level you have been assigned for your flight. For example, on a airline flight, ATC may send you to 3000 (FL3) and then to 15000 (FL15) before your final altitude of say 32000 (FL32). In an unrestricted climb, you can go to directly to FL32 as fast as you can get there.
"Unrestricted climb" means you have a free climb to your assigned initial cruise altitude. Normally, at any airport, you would be vectored to some point at a lower altitude then maybe some other point at a higher altitude and then cleared to your cruise altitude. Unrestricted means there are no restrictions on your climb to initial cruise and also that there's no traffic you have to worry about. At a place like Roanoke Regional I'd imagine that clearance would have to come from the ATC that has control over that airspace and I think it's a safe guess that controller isn't on that airport although it's possible. Usually anything smaller than the largest/busiest in the area doesn't have control of the airspace up past a certain flight level. Usually around 10,000ft or less. For example, most of the entire western half of Washington state and the surrounding area is controlled by Seattle-Tacoma International. Hope that helps.
Beautiful! The C-17 is an awesome Aircraft, obviously this one wasn't fully loaded for a climb like that, I never get tired of watching interesting planes taking off/landing. Nice posting thanks for sharing,
"That ole god dang climb I tell you what by God that ole boy got right up on outta there I tell you what".... Who was that Boomhouer from King of the Hill?
i love bein able to watch these badboys take off all night. i supply the parts for them. couldnt be to much more badass to see those things land and take off
Okay, to answer everybody's question about this video. I've been a C-17 Aircraft Commander for 2 years now, so here's how this "unrestricted climb" works. Tower assigns the crew a certain altitude on the departure leg. The crew has been cleared to climb to that altitude, but for traffic avoidance the crew informs the tower that they will be exceeding a predictable climb rate. Upon approaching that assigned altitude the crew will level the aircraft as to not exceed the asssigned altitude.
@baggedyman When a flight crew files a flight plan they include their desired cruiseing altitude. Normally flying a departure procedure out of an airport they will be assigned an initial altitude, 5000ft for example, and to expect climb to their desired cruise level after a certain amount of time. So they take off climb to 5000 ft and level off unless they are cleard to a different altitude. Eventually being cleard up to cruise altitude. Here they are going straight up to cruise I believe.
amazing airplane up here in alaska were lucky enough to have them based here at Elemendorf AFB for alaska, always cool to see em running missions and exercises... hope i get to fly one eventually in the armed forces
@DreamAboutSpace - it means you can climb at a steeper angle all the way to your final altitude without having to level off, because there aren't any aircraft flying nearby to get in your way.
Areas around airfields have procedural limits, steps that you take to climb out. So for London heathrow you can't exceed 5,000 feet within 14 miles. But if you care cleared unrestricted you can climb directly to your cleared altitude at whatever rate you like. Jets like to get out of the dense warm low level air as soon as possible... but on other days it's just to show off.
To the guy saying an RPG can easily take a plane down, your right, so can a flock of geese, but at the same time, planes don't all fall so easily, look at the DHL Airbus that got hit in the number 1 engine in Baghdad
He he. First time I saw that from WAY UP HERE in Iqaluit, NU, sometime this year, and it was awesome. Same jet but can't remember which country it belongs to cuz the British, our own CAF-17 (or CF-117), or the Americans, would drop-by to Iqaluit...
@deadpeng normally at airports, after takeoff, all planes climb to a set altitude whenever taking off at that airport, and either climb or dive to a different altitude when the tower tells them, after getting away from the runway. Unrestricted is just going how ever high they want
@chanctonbury63 Unrestricted climbs are very steep, more noticeable with fighter jets, when they go almost vertical upon takeoff. Normally planes need to follow a takeoff plan from ATC that dictates their altitude from takeoff.
I guess I'll always mourn the demise of Douglas....I enormously respect Boeing, and all other names in world aviation, but Douglas is ti me the grand old name of American aviation... Great video, BTW
Unrestricted climb means the pilot can climb as fast as he wants. most controlled airports require the flight path be at certain angles. if you were in the plane, you would be almost laying on your back.
@themant13 Im glad the plane didnt go down, but lets be honest here. An RPG could easily take a plane down, even a c-17. It was luck that the damage wasnt critical. There are plenty of places an RPG round could hit in order to take a c-17 down. The fuel tanks...the cockpit...the vertical stabilizers...even a military plane is still a plane.
