Category: Flying – Page 5
Destination: Lausanne
I don’t know a lot about Lausanne but hopefully that’s about to change. After a bit of a refresher in North Weald, I’ll be braving a border-crossing into Switzerland: flying to Lausanne to meet with some people and hopefully to waste some quality time sitting at the edge of the lake looking at France. My…
Read more… 14 May 08
Destination: North Weald
North Weald airfield was established in 1916 to protect London during the First World War and prides itself for being a frontline airfield in the Battle of Britain in 1940. The military abandoned the airfield in 1964 but the Essex Gliding Club has kept the now unlicensed airfield active since the 1970’s. My quick reference…
Read more… 11 May 08
May Route Planning
We’ve got a busy fortnight coming up – I’ve done a quick mock-up of the route we are starting to plan. The plane is parked in North Weald (in Essex) so the flying doesn’t start until we get there (the British Airways flight to Gatwick doesn’t count, that’s just a case of arrive at the…
Read more… 30 Apr 08
Tipsy Nipper feeling Dippy
Ever wondered what you’d do if you entered an unintentional spin? What about a flat spin, where the plane is horizontal and spinning like a top, all the while falling out of the sky. Last autumn, there was a post to the Tipsy Nipper Owner’s Group Forum with this photograph and the following comment. Whilst…
Read more… 23 Apr 08
Flying Commercial
My last flight was in a big jet with a crew and mini-bottles of wine and everything. It made for a change but I think I prefer the Saratoga overall – especially after putting together this grab-bag from the world of commercial flying. “Terrain, terrain, pull up. Too low.” Not something you want to hear…
Read more… 5 Apr 08
Crosswind Landing?
Jesus, look at the rocking of that plane, my stomach churns just watching the video. This was apparently shot yesterday in Hamburg. The pilot did the right thing, he went around. The person filming is commenting (in German) that the plane almost crashed. Watch at 0:42 and you can see a puff of smoke as…
Read more… 3 Mar 08
Accident Analysis
The Anatomy of an A350–CRJ Collision at Atlanta
On the 10th of September 2024, an Airbus A350 took the tail off of a Bombardier CRJ at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia, USA. Delta Air Lines flight 295…
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.…
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…
