I’m pleased to share another post from Rudy and his early flying days during the Nigerian Civil War. All of the photographs were taken by Rudy at the time. It’s fascinating stuff; I hope you enjoy it as much as I have! -Sylvia More from the Lagos Flying Club, 1968 by Rudy Jakma When I…
Read more… 12 Apr 19
Yesterday, the 4th of April, the Ethiopian Accident Investigation Bureau investigating the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 released the Preliminary Report (local version stored at bottom of this post). Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, in the Boeing 737-8(MAX) registration number ET-AVJ, was a scheduled passenger flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi. There were two flight…
Read more… 5 Apr 19
I’ve had a soft spot for the Dassault Rafale for a long time; I even included it in a short story under a slightly modified name and description. It’s a French twin-engine fighter which is so crazily agile that it’s aerodynamically unstable; digital fly-by-wire controls keep it under control. Designed to work with aircraft carriers,…
Read more… 29 Mar 19
The entire aviation world is focused on the Boeing 737 Max 8, especially as the details from the Lion Air cockpit voice recorder files have been leaked. The truth is, I don’t have a lot to say about it at this stage (unlike me to keep quiet, I know!) and so instead, I’ve put together…
Read more… 22 Mar 19
The news is dominated right now with the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max 8 after a second fatal crash of a passenger jet which could be related to the onboard systems. There’s a LOT of questionable information out there and many of the explanations presume a certain level of aviation knowledge. I’d like to…
Read more… 15 Mar 19
Last week, this video of an Airbus A320 performing a frankly frightening looking approach followed by a go around was splashed all over social media. Here’s the original footage on Twitter with an apology for the swearing: @GibChronicle @RockRadio @GBCNewsroom this is the original version…. apologies for the swearing. pic.twitter.com/F7wtmwtVqi — MackeminGib (@mackemsin) February 25,…
Read more… 1 Mar 19
Fatal SR22 Stall on Final at Barwick LaFayette
On the 20th of March, 2025, a Cirrus SR22 crashed in LaFayette, Georgia during an instructional flight, killing both the pilot and the flight instructor. It was a good flying…
There Is a Parachutist in Front of You
On the 15th of June 2023, a light aircraft crashed into the runway at Aversi private airfield in Denmark. The aircraft, registered in Germany as D-EPRR, was a Cessna TU206G…
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”…
The Pilots, the Probes, and the AF447 Verdict
On the 21st of May 2026, the Paris Court of Appeal convicted Airbus and Air France of involuntary manslaughter for their roles in the crash of Air France flight 447,…
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…
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…