Video of the Week

CFII (and AVweb reader) Nate Weinsaft tells us he's "a huge fan of Sean D. Tucker and the musician Steve Morse ... [who] recently purchased a Mac." We won't speculate on how long it took to match up Tucker's aerobatic feats to the swells and valleys of "Air on a 6 String," but it was long enough to earn Nate's video a spot as today's AVweb "Video of the Week." (For those who will ask, here's a link to buy the album. You're on your own when it comes to buying the Macintosh.) (Click through to watch.)

Whenever we put out the call, we get a wide variety of links and video clips from AVweb readers. This one, from reader James Fender, made us sit up and take notice. Before you watch, we should warn you that it is indeed part of an air show performance - no ultralights were actually shot down over New Jersey. (Click through to watch.)

Our friends at 2FlyTV were on hand last week with the first Airbus A380s landed at JFK and LAX. In this exclusive video from New York, 2FlyTV takes us behind the scenes of the celebrated landing, with great shots of the interior and some commentary on the A380. (Click through to watch.)

For the last couple of weeks, we've been sharing fun, light-hearted videos of people making things fly. This week, we dip back into the "holy crap!" file for a devastating helicopter accident from Break.com. Thankfully, no one seems to be injured, but this is one harrowing clip, especially for safety-conscious observers. (Click through to watch.)

This week, we ask the question, "Would Top Gun have been as much fun if Tom Cruise had an RC antenna instead of a stick?" Probably not - but it might have been more exciting than you think, as evidenced by this clip of a scale model radio-controlled F-14 posted on YouTube by mwtpt4270. (Click through to watch.)

Our latest "Video of the Week" comes to us from an AVweb reader who writes, "For those that know what FLIR is, I have a video you need to see. This is [a Gulfstream] ... on a visual landing to Aspen, Colorado at night. The right half of the view is the pilot's normal visual path to the runway during darkness - in other words, totally black. The left side of the screen is the Forward Looking Infrared [FLIR], which paints the heat signature of the outside terrain for pilots so we can see at night as though it were daytime. ... You have to love FLIR ... takes all the fun out of night VFR!"

There are two videos we receive (and stumble across) more often than any others on the web. Both videos are testaments to human ingenuity and technical achievement - and they never fail to raise a giggle when we see them. We've held them in reserve for a while, just in case we needed them to brighten a particularly rough Monday morning. (Plus, we were afraid that it we ran these videos, people would stop sending them to us. And that would ruin the pleasant surprise of watching these videos at 4:00 on a Thursday afternoon and laughing our heads off.) But the time has come, at last, to unveil the first of our Two Most-Submitted Videos: the flying lawnmower! (Click through to watch.)

Our latest "Video of the Week" is for those of who'd love to attend a hot air balloon race, but just couldn't find the time in 2006. You're in luck, because YouTube user tlapse has put together and incredible time-lapse video of the 2006 Reno Balloon Race launch ceremony - using stills from a Canon digital camera! (Click through to watch.)

This week's video is an impressive slideshow of C-141s put together by Mike Novack of C-141 Heaven. The video celebrates the careers of 141s and (according to Mike's blog) was put together after last May's retirement ceremony for one of the last flying specimens. (Set to the music of Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere.")

Who hasn't wanted to do this ever since he or she was a kid? Loic Jean Albert lives the dream in this clip from Ultimate Journey, sent to us by AVweb reader Noah Forden. Click through to watch.