Category: Fun Stuff – Page 3
Parachute deployed in flat spin at 1,000 feet
This video was posted to a number of aviation forums last week and it’s easy to see why. I literally watched it three times in a row on the spot when I first encountered it. The clip is from a cockpit video of a pilot in a spin who then deploys the parachute as the…
Read more… 22 Dec 17
Do Not Remove From Aircraft
I’m going to Helsinki this weekend (sadly by ferry not by plane) but I have a guest post by Simon Rockman for you which is, I think, delightfully different. I worked with Simon in the previous century (!!!), way back when the Internet was a new and shiny thing. He was the go-to man for…
Read more… 1 Dec 17
Maybe an Origin Story
It was a lazy evening in 1980 and I was bored at my dad’s house, when I put on his television and flicked through the 150 channels he had, looking for something to watch. I paused at a scene which showed a bunch of good looking guys in pilot gear playing baseball. They were arguing…
Read more… 14 Jul 17
This Week’s Most Amazing Stories
This has been an amazing week for aviation news with unbelievable stories and videos seemingly coming from all directions. Anna and I have been posting every day to the Fear of Landing Facebook page but I wanted to share the best here. First off, the incredible crash landing in Everett, Washington. The pilot had just…
Read more… 5 May 17
The Amazing Flying Granny
The man in the video is Peter Powell, a British entrepreneur who famously developed steerable kites using dual lines in 1972. He started by selling the kites from the back of his car and then began selling them on Paignton sea front. He had no shop window, he sold them simply by flying the kites…
Read more… 28 Apr 17
Fascinating Aviation Articles on the Internet
How Aviation Became Firefighters’ Best Friend—And Then Their Worst Enemy This fire, now known as the Saddle Fire, raged across the state throughout summer 2016. Before it burned out it would see multiple instances of drone interference with firefighting efforts. On June 22, Herbert angrily tweeted about the incident and held a press conference denouncing…
Read more… 16 Dec 16
Accident Reports
In the cockpit of Southwest flight 1380
On the 17th of April in 2018, Southwest Airlines flight 1330 experienced an engine failure while climbing to cruise altitude. The aircraft was a Boeing 737-7H4 (registration N772SW) with two…
Going Around: Bulgaria Air Charter flight 8115
It was 4am on the 16th of July 2018 when the Bulgaria Air Charter flight crew arrived at the airport, an hour before the scheduled 05:12 flight 8115 from Catania…
Demystifying
How do you pronounce…?
This is a very interesting article by Allen Amsbaugh which was originally published in NASA’s ASRS Directline about the issues of navigational fixes which sound or look similar. The ASRS…
Flightradar 24 and aircraft tracking
Flightradar24 (FR24) is a global flight tracking site which offers realtime information about flights by tracking ADS-B. ADS-B stands for automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast. This is a means for an aircraft…
History
How to shoot down a fighter jet...while flying it.
The Grumman F-11 Tiger was a popular US Navy fighter aircraft introduced in 1956. At the time, it was known as the F11F Tiger. Grumman had been working to modernise…
The Real “Bionic Man”
Some of you may have spotted the recent comments on Wingless Flight in the M2-F1 by aerospace journalist and author Nigel Macknight, who had written about NASA’s M2-F2 pilot Milt…
Fun Stuff
Microsoft Flight Simulator: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
Microsoft Flight Simulator has released a new version, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, fourteen years after the release of Microsoft Flight Simulator X. The timing couldn’t be better, of course, with…
Toddler Overboard and other aviation videos
I’ve got quite a collection of interesting videos building up so it’s past time for me to share them! These are not all brand new but new to me and…
@FearofLanding
Mendel on In the cockpit of Southwest flight 1380From the final report: "For example, according to CVR information, during the 17 minutes between the time of the engine…
Rudy Jakma on In the cockpit of Southwest flight 1380That makes sense Chip. It also would confirm your observation that the aircraft was not severely damaged, otherwise an engine…
Harrow on In the cockpit of Southwest flight 1380The details of a flight plan often do not survive even the closing of the boarding gate, much less any…
CHip on In the cockpit of Southwest flight 1380The Wikipedia article says The aircraft, N772SW, a Boeing 737-7H4 was subsequently flown to Boeing in Everett, WA on April…
R Waskin on In the cockpit of Southwest flight 1380Re fuel and souls on board, isn't that information contained in the flight plan? I'm a private pilot, not commercial,…
Jon on In the cockpit of Southwest flight 1380Hear Hear! It is what they are trained to do, and they did very well. You hear often about how…