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Happy New Year!
My resolutions. Short-term: 1) I will get working on Alderney this week and finish it off. 2) I will sort through and post all the millions of photographs gathering virtual dust on my hard-drive. 3) I’ll go back to thinking about this one island at a time rather than get overwhelmed at the total number…
Read more… 30 Dec 06
Isle of Wight – local white wine?
“Marked as medium-dry but not sweet at all. In fact, it’s sour … but surprisingly drinkable after the first shock. I could imagine enjoying it in sunnier climates mixed with mineral water as a tart wine spritzer.” Why I would bother to write all that and not name the wine is beyond me. I don’t…
Read more… 10 Oct 06
New Look
A winter re-design. There were quite a few small things on the site that needed dealing with and Cliff volunteered to help with bringing WordPress to heel. I have to admit I thought the grey was particularly appropriate, given the issues with winter flying in the UK. The categories and archives should be a bit…
Read more… 7 Oct 06
The Shipwreck of the Stella
The Casquets, the set of towers we’d seen on the flight in, is not surprisingly an important figure within the recent history of the island but the most interesting and tragic story is told at the Maritime Museum: the wreck of the Stella. In the 1890s the competition between the ‘London and South Western’ and…
Read more… 5 Oct 06
I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore…
This trip, I learned how to tie down the plane after the housekeeper at our Bed and Breakfast warned us of an upcoming hurricane. “It’s really a hurricane?” I asked Lynne. “Yes, tail-end of one. Which one is it?” “Gordon,” piped up someone in the corner of the room. “No, not Gordon,” said Lynne. “That…
Read more… 30 Sep 06
Things to Do on St Mary’s
The Isles of Scilly are said to be the most isolated islands in Britain, which I have a hard time believing — in England maybe, but in Britain? It’s a total of 150 islands (five inhabited) but in line with my other destinations, I’m staying on the chunk of land with the airfield on it.…
Read more… 21 Sep 06
Accident Analysis
Why KLM Cut the Steering Cables on Two Perfectly Functional Boeing 737s
Last month, we looked at the night of 28th of November 2004 at Barcelona Airport. KLM 1673 ran off the runway at high speed, stopping just short of a canal.…
KLM 1673 Veers Off the Runway with Full Right Rudder
On the 28th of November 2004, a Boeing B737 ran off the runway at Barcelona Airport. The weather had been good at Barcelona that evening. The flight crew agreed to land…
Demystifying
How Important is Having a Sterile Cockpit?
This question was posted to r/flying by a private pilot who wanted to know: do airline pilots ever engage in small talk about irrelevant things during taxiing, run-up, takeoff, and…
Someone has to write the TAF
It turns out that there a person sitting there deciding what the weather is going to do. Which seems obvious, except that I had somehow never asked msyelf who “someone”…
History
The CIA's Shark Screen
Today we have a guest post from the CIA! In their archives, researching something completely different, I found the answer to a question I never thought to ask. I immediately…
The First Jet to Land on an Aircraft Carrier (Deliberately)
“The Vampire was the first jet to land on a moving aircraft carrier deliberately.” This quote from Airshow Luke, our MC at the Legacy of Liberty airshow, made me almost…
Fun Stuff
Petrified, Petrified, Petrified
There’s been some interesting reporting in the UK media about a “near disaster” over Canary Wharf involving the captain having to intervene (the horror!) after air data systems failed on…
Aviation Stories You Might Have Missed
I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season. This week, I’ve put together a compilation of interesting items in the press that you might have missed while enjoying…
