Category: Flying –  Page 6

Instrument Rating – unofficial ground school

Jeremy Zawodny has started ground school where he’ll learn IFR theory for his instrument rating. The fun bit is that he’s posting about it on his blog and plans to keep doing so. This is great, from my point of view. I’d like to get my instrument rating. It’s something I keep putting off, because…

Read more… 26 Sep 07

Why do I do this again?

Things that happened during the flight with my mother: 1) we ended up without a VFR chart for the majority of the area we were flying over 2) my boyfriend and I descended into major arguments about basic planning (mainly based on heat and nerves rather than actual issues) 3) my mother corrected an Italian…

Read more… 1 Sep 07

Malaga – Roma – Mannheim

Everything is ready for the next flight. Cliff will do the first trip IFR. We’ll be flying up the coast of Spain and then across to Menorca for a refuel and last minute check before a long water crossing directly to Rome. Then we’ll continue on IFR (so constantly under watch, which strikes me as…

Read more… 22 Aug 07

Flying Over Lake Constance

Here’s the view as we fly away from our initial destination at Lake Constance. No, you don’t get a view of us flying to it as I was busy with the plane at that point! At the wing tip you can see the airfield, the same one that I linked to on Google in the…

Read more… 3 Jul 07

He became aware of some power cables…

I love that phrasing: “he became aware” .. .it makes it sound like such a calm moment. I don’t usually haunt the accident reports (they make me nervous) but this one was someone I know. The subject came up the first time as I was doing circuits at Oxford Airport for my night rating. I…

Read more… 19 May 07

Not the best advertising!

I saw this photograph today and had to share. You can see the full story at Snopes at http://www.snopes.com/photos/airplane/flightschool.asp — what a landing, huh? Amazing that the pilot walked away, really.

Read more… 16 Jan 07

Accident Reports

Human Factors Breakdown: C-17 Crash at Elmendorf

Last week, we looked at a fatal C-17 accident at Elmendorf in 2010. I now want to focus on the analysis of the situation leading up to the stall. It’s…

Dangerous Aerobatics : C-17 crash at Elmendorf (2010)

In 2010, a US Air Force transport plane crashed just one minute after take-off while practising for the Arctic Thunder Air Show at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska. ​…

Demystifying

What Is Going On With The Boeing 737 Max 8?

The news is dominated right now with the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max 8 after a second fatal crash of a passenger jet which could be related to the…

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…

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

2019 Valdez Fly In and STOL Competition

Every May in Valdez, Alaska there is a fantastic aviation competition which requires astounding performance and precision from both from the aircraft and from the pilot. The Valdez STOL competition…

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…