This photograph was sent to me a couple of times with questions of what it might portray and I just had to track it down. The photograph was first posted to Reddit as This aircraft belongs to a conservation team in The Amazon. Yikes! and then again in September with its current headline, The anthropologists…
Read more… 17 Oct 14
It’s not often that aircraft marshalling hits the headlines but this video of ME1 Tan Wen Kai of the Singapore Airforce has gone completely viral. Aircraft marshallers use hand-signals to communicate with aircraft on the ground, for example to give directions. It’s the equivalent of guiding someone into a parking space, except there’s not much…
Read more… 5 Sep 14
I’ve long been obsessed with banner planes. They are fascinating and amazing to watch. When I did my PPL in Spain, I was lucky enough to see them in action every weekend. All excerpts from You Fly Like a Woman: The weekends were busy at Axarquía now that high summer was here. Broad-shouldered young men…
Read more… 6 Dec 13
A reader mailed me this amazing aviation photograph and I knew I wanted to know more. I was surprised at how much I discovered about the photo, which at first glance I thought might be a fake. But the story of who took the photograph and how he managed to get the shot is a…
Read more… 1 Nov 13
1) The Dreamliner’s noise reduction tech is the results of decades of NASA research The Dreamliner has chevrons – serrated edges on the engine nacelles – in order to reduce the noise. Passengers on the plane before it was grounded say that it is quite noticeably quieter but I hadn’t understood the background. “Evolution from…
Read more… 1 Feb 13
We’ve all seen this in the toilets of commercial aircraft: a large no-smoking sign with a plainly marked ashtray underneath. Obviously airlines who allow in-flight smoking have ashtrays as a part of the standard model. But are there any of those left? The US banned smoking on domestic flights in 1990 and soon followed up…
Read more… 14 Dec 12
On the 3rd of March 2023, a passenger in a private jet died after severe injuries in the cabin, which were originally reported as caused by severe turbulence. This was…
On the 19th of January 2025, a Robinson R44 Raven II helicopter registered as ZS-RJC departed Chief Dawid Stuurman Aerodrome (formerly Port Elizabeth Airport) in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province.…
This is not an article that I ever thought I would feel compelled to write! However, given the confusion over a photograph chosen in a regional English paper, apparently it’s…
There are a number of reasons why you might need to quickly point out the differences between a General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and a Eurofighter EF2000 Typhoon. You might…
This video of a mid-air wheel exchange goes viral once a year or so, but I never get tired of watching it. Last week, it showed up on Reddit and…
This week, we have a guest post by J.B. Rivard who wrote an article for the American Aviation Historical Society (AAHS) and used one of my articles as a reference.…
It seems a good time for something a bit more lighthearted. After weeks of analyzing serious incidents and technical failures, I thought I could a moment to appreciate aviation humuor…
I’m going to admit that I’m not a great fan of April Fools’ pranks, especially not attempts to trick people into believing something and then pulling the rug out from…