Category: Demystifying – Page 6
Drone Killer
When I’m not obsessing about aviation, I write speculative fiction, including science fiction featuring near-future technology. So you can imagine I was pretty excited when I saw a headline last week that the Oceanside Police Department in California has recently acquired a Drone Killer. I had visions of The Terminator but it turns out that…
Read more… 20 Apr 18
Crash in the Desert (Controlled Impact Demonstration)
This post started, as so many of them do, with a seemingly unbelieveable photograph with no attribution information. It didn’t take long to find a Reddit thread discussing the photograph and tracing it to a television show called Destroyed in Seconds, a Discovery Channel series featuring ‘video segments of various things being destroyed quickly”. Episode…
Read more… 10 Nov 17
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 in this case because he teaches mathematics in Nova Scotia at Saint Mary’s University and is absolutely excellent at explaining numbers to me. Although he…
Read more… 13 May 16
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 photograph from Heathrow Airport was posted to Reddit with the question: What is this plane doing in this enclosed bay? The correct answer is the…
Read more… 25 Mar 16
Factual Version of the Clipper Eclipse crash featured in the Oatmeal
This week The Oatmeal presented a comic strip entitled It’s going to be okay about Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, who survived a plane crash in 1947. It’s a motivational comic meant, the author says, to remind us that our journeys are short. You can read the comic here: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/plane. It’s a lovely…
Read more… 13 Nov 15
Piper Comanche Full of Arrows
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
Accident Reports
TNflygirl and the Beech Debonair
On the 7th of December 2023, a Beech 35-C33 Debonair crashed into terrain. The private pilot and the passenger, the pilot’s father, were both killed on impact. The private flight…
At All Costs
On the 11th of December 2024, the passenger in the right seat of a 1973 Grumman AA-5 was recording a video as they approached Pearland Regional Airport in Texas. The…
Demystifying
Trump Threatens to Ground Canadian Aircraft Over Gulfstream Certification
The US President, Donald Trump, posted the following to Truth Social last night. Based on the fact that Canada has wrongfully, illegally, and steadfastly refused to certify the Gulfstream 500,…
Another quick round of questions and answers
It’s time for another Questions and Answers session. I started this series a few years back, when a reader asked if there was a way to pose aviation questions outside…
History
Four Point Two Stars Where You Only Stop If You Have To
I always look up airports when I’m writing about them, partly out of habit and partly because I’m afraid I’ll miss an important detail. When I was writing Any Landing…
Gladys Ingle Inflight Wheel Change: Emergency Action or Stunt?
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…
Fun Stuff
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…
Nathan Pyle Strange Worlds
Thank you so much for all the kind words. I don’t quite have the wherewithal to respond to each of you individually but I very much appreciate all of you…
