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How to Drop a Gulfstream IV into a Ravine: Habitual Noncompliance
Everyone involved with aviation knows checklists. They are the cornerstone of aviation safety, meant to protect against the ever increasing complexity of aircraft and the limited attention span of the average human. They follow a pattern: a B-32 checklist from 1943 is similar in concept and design to a modern airliner checklist. It would be…
Read more… 5 Feb 16
The Navigator
I’m thrilled to be able to bring you a special post today. Captain Richard Otis sent this to me after I begged him to write down one of his many, many great stories so that I could share them with you. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. Captain Richard A. Otis,…
Read more… 29 Jan 16
The Latest Embarrassing Attempt to Prove MH370’s Pilot Hijack
There’s been a lot of excitement around Byron Bailey’s article, The case for pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s hijack of flight MH370. Once again, an apparent expert attempts to solve the mystery of Malaysia Airlines flight 370, this time by making it clear that Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the captain of the aircraft, must have hijacked the…
Read more… 22 Jan 16
Aircraft Lost to the Bermuda Triangle: Airborne Transport (1948)
As aviation and maritime safety has increased, one doesn’t hear so much about the Bermuda Triangle so much anymore. Known as the “Devil’s Triangle”, it wasn’t so long ago that it was considered the biggest mystery of the time. The first reference to this mysterious and dangerous area which appeared to be swallowing ships and…
Read more… 15 Jan 16
Top Ten Posts of 2015
It’s that time of year again! A moment of retrospection as we look at the most popular posts on Fear of Landing in 2015. Number 10: The teenager who flew to Moscow 28 years ago, on the 28th May 1987, a 19-year old German flew a Cessna 172 to Moscow, taxi-ing straight into the Red…
Read more… 8 Jan 16
Crazy about Drones
I got a drone for Christmas after reading an Inspire 2 review! I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet but, in view of the bad reputation drones have in the aviation world, I thought I would post some positive drone links to balance it out a bit. Drone’s World This video shows…
Read more… 1 Jan 16
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
Bird Strikes, Balloon Landings and Falling in Love with a Boeing 777
The exciting news on Fear of Landing this week was a huge scare about critical vulnerabilities in PHP. PHP is widely used on the web, including in WordPress, which is…
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…
