Category: Flying –  Page 2

November 666 Echo X-ray, Do You Read?

(Something from the archives: a 2008 post about Air Traffic Service Units in the UK and my native ability to talk too much. I’ll be back with fresh content next week.) Air/Ground Radio Airfields with A/G Radio offer an information service with a radio operator who are not licensed and not under close CAA supervision.…

Read more… 7 May 10

Cross Country Solo – Part Three

The cross country navigation exercise is required to complete the JAR private pilot’s licence. It is effectively the first time the pilot is left alone with the plane, dependent on the new skills learned over the past few weeks. It is now not simply a case of handling the plane but also juggling the full…

Read more… 16 Apr 10

Cross Country Solo – Part 2

The cross country navigation exercise is required to complete the JAR private pilot’s licence. It is effectively the first time the pilot is left alone with the plane, dependent on the new skills learned over the past few weeks. It is now not simply a case of handling the plane but also juggling the full…

Read more… 9 Apr 10

The Last Flight

Max Grogan, a pilot and avid photographer, posted this story to BeechTalk.com, a wonderful community of pilots and Beechcraft enthusiasts. I was immediately entranced and contacted Max directly to thank him for this heartwarming story of the brief friendship of two men, united by a love of flying. He was kind enough to give me…

Read more… 12 Feb 10

Brookman’s Park VOR (BPK)

I shouldn’t have hopped the fence. It was shut with a big padlock and surrounded by barbed wire so I can’t exactly claim that I hadn’t noticed it. But I’d walked such a long way – 5 miles! – just to take some photographs for my blog, it seemed such a shame to give up…

Read more… 25 Sep 09

Pitch vs. Power: Landing Better

Flying is hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. When I first started flying, I presumed that the phrase was referring to the take-off and landing. I hadn’t even begun to conceive of things going wrong in the air; flying from A to B was the easy bit. Getting into the air and…

Read more… 10 Jul 09

Accident Reports

Ever Left The Parking Brake On?

On the 22nd of December 2017, BMI Regional flight 1822, an Embraer ERJ-145EP (G-CKAG), was a scheduled flight from Frankfurt/Main in Germany to Bristol Airport in England. There were 22…

The Christmas Miracle - Part Two

I try to make these posts as stand-alone as possible but this time I just couldn’t do it. In order to make sense of this post, you need to read…

Demystifying

Thirty Years Since Air France Flight 296

Thirty years ago, on the 26th of June 1988, a brand new Airbus A320 crashed during a demonstration of its fly-by-wire capabilities, killing three passengers and demolishing the plane as…

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…

History

Building a B-29 Piece by Piece

I’m in Austria this week, giving a presentation about the representation of old women in science fiction. So it seemed only right to celebrate a woman in aviation who might…

The Odd Story of Richard Floyd McCoy Jr

I’ve been working hard on volume two of Without a Trace and, of course, I can’t resist a chapter on Dan Cooper, who successfully hijacked a Northwest Orient aircraft and…

Fun Stuff

For your amusement: weird and interesting NOTAMS

I was browsing around looking for interesting news when I saw that Reddit user justachamelion had posted a great question for /r/AskReddit: Pilots of Reddit, what are the weirdest or…

In case you were wondering what to get me for Christmas

There are lots of private jets up for sale but this one is special… It is a 1962 Lockheed JetStar 1329. The JetStar was a private project at Lockheed, originally…