You all know by now how much I love Spitfires. My list of Five Facts I Never Knew about Spitfires needs expanding: I never knew that a Spitfire could make it from Oxford to Berlin and back. I realised that the short-range aircraft must have had special fuel tanks for these reconnaissance flights and started…
Read more… 19 Jul 13
The Airbus A350 maiden flight was today and wow, but that aircraft is gorgeous! A new chapter has opened in Airbus’ 43 year history as the first A350 XWB, the world’s most efficient large twin-engined commercial aircraft, powered aloft this morning for its maiden flight at Blagnac in Toulouse, France at 10.00 hours local time.…
Read more… 14 Jun 13
This blog post started, as so many do, over a general conversation at the pub. We were actually talking about Felix Baumbartner, the man who jumped from the edge of space last year and made numerous records, including the highest freefall ever. I remembered there was a woman who held the record for the longest…
Read more… 15 Mar 13
The Lockheed C-141 Starlifter is a strategic airlifter: a cargo aircraft specifically used to transport personnel or materials over long distances. This military aircraft has appeared in every US conflict from Vietnam to Afghanistan. It’s a big, well-stacked, beautiful plane built for comfort, not speed. (A lot like me, actually!) So I was excited to…
Read more… 15 Feb 13
Forty years ago on the 29th of December in 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashed into the Florida Everglades. It was an uneventful flight from JFK until shortly before they were at the approach at Miami Airport. When the flight-crew lowered the landing gear, they did not receive confirmation that the nose wheel was…
Read more… 4 Jan 13
Everyone is talking about the Spitfires to be excavated in Myanmar. It isn’t clear how many Spitfires will be recovered. David J. Cundall, who led the search, announced that he’d discovered 20 aircraft but since then his partner company has cited at least 60 and a Myanma geologist has estimated 140 Spitfires in various locations…
Read more… 19 Oct 12
You may remember this 2010 incident from Aviation Herald’s great reporting which led to international attention to the case. I wrote about Aviation Herald’s work on this in: 83ft above…
On the 6th of February 2010, at about half past four in the afternoon, an SAS flight took off from Copenhagen Airport for a short flight to France. Amazingly, everyone…
With no moon or city lights to guide you, the runway lights up ahead should be a beacon of safety. However, it might be a trap known as the black…
On Monday, two commercial aircraft had a near-miss on the runway at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas. The airport at Austin has two parallel concrete runways which run north-to-south: 18L/36R…
I’ve lost most of the day to unexpected research and one of the fascinating items that I discovered was the Air Force Historical Research Agency and their amazing photo collection.…
On the 21st of November 1956, the M-200 Myest (Месть, meaning vengeance or revenge) collided with a Russian destroyer and sunk to the bottom of the Baltic. The M-200 Myest…
I’m in Dresden at the moment and I’m afraid I haven’t had a free moment to write you a new article. Luckily, lots of other people are on the internet…
Long-term readings of Fear of Landing know that my favourite aerobatics show of all time is Kyle Franklin’s Ben Whabnoski Comedy act. Just in case some of you haven’t seen…