Category: Crazy

The Amazing Flying Granny

The man in the video is Peter Powell, a British entrepreneur who famously developed steerable kites using dual lines in 1972. He started by selling the kites from the back of his car and then began selling them on Paignton sea front. He had no shop window, he sold them simply by flying the kites…

Read more… 28 Apr 17

Lakeside Ryder Cup Tickets: easy with a seaplane! Or maybe not…

The Ryder Cup is one of the premiere golfing competitions between the US and Europe (originally Great Britain) which is held every other year. This year, the matches were held at the Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota. Hazeltine National Golf Club is a private club and usually closed to guests not accompanied by…

Read more… 9 Dec 16

Mystery Mali Boeing

On the 2nd of November in 2009, a burnt-out Boeing 727 was discovered abandoned in the Saharan desert of Mali in west Africa. The initial reaction was that the Boeing must have crash-landed on this spot but investigators soon discovered that it had landed safely on the make-shift desert airstrip — a dried out lake…

Read more… 18 Nov 16

Cow Takes Down Helicopter

Apologies to those who saw this on Fear of Landing’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, but I know many people only read the blog and I didn’t want anyone to miss it. This is a Robinson R22 Beta which was dragged out of the air by a cow. Well, no, it’s unfair to accuse the cow…

Read more… 23 Sep 16

The Man Who Ate a Cessna

It’s clear by now that I’m obsessively rather interested in planes but not in a weird way. I usually limit myself to considering how they fly, how they look while they are flying, and how they sound when they pass overhead. I’ve never actually considered how they taste. One man did, however. Michel Lotito, a…

Read more… 18 Sep 15

Outrageous Headline of the Day

Today, on Times Warner Cable News: Pilot Caught on Camera Texting During Takeoff Looks bad, right? Except…how the heck could a passenger even see the pilot, let alone get video of the cockpit showing the pilot texting and checking twitter? Well, let’s watch the video. The pilot was a passenger. He was apparently seated halfway…

Read more… 4 Sep 15

Accident Reports

He's a Terror in a Twin

Sometimes it’s obvious how an accident report is going to end from the very first sentence. NTSB Identification: CEN15FA400 “The airplane owner, who was a noninstrument-rated private pilot and did…

The Database Error And The Turkish Airlines Airbus

On the 4th of March 2015 a Turkish Airlines Airbus A330-303 left the runway when landing at Kathmandu. The headlines called it a database error. When I read the accident…

Demystifying

The 1% rule and air disaster avoidance

I asked my friend, Robert Dawson, to help me understand the numbers behind risk assessment and the 1% rule. Robert writes fantastic science fiction and poetry, however I contacted him…

Airplane Pens

This is a bit of a short post today to make up for all the heavy posts recently. Me, I’m enjoying the long weekend and a bit of sunshine… This…

History

Sutlej Missing Over Indian Ocean

On 25 March 1986, three Antonov An-32 transport planes departed Muscat, the capital of Oman, in a staggered formation for the Indian Air Force base at Jagmagar. Initially, the Indian…

"I Don't Know Why I Killed Him But I Did"

The true story of Earnest Pletch is hard to believe, even almost a hundred years later. Commonly referred to as America’s first hijack, I’m not sure where else there might…

Fun Stuff

This Week's Most Amazing Stories

This has been an amazing week for aviation news with unbelievable stories and videos seemingly coming from all directions. Anna and I have been posting every day to the Fear…

Fascinating Aviation Articles on the Internet

How Aviation Became Firefighters’ Best Friend—And Then Their Worst Enemy This fire, now known as the Saddle Fire, raged across the state throughout summer 2016. Before it burned out it…