Category: Miscellaneous –  Page 4

Most Popular Aviation Pieces in 2014

Long dark nights are slowly receding as we pass the winter solstice and head back towards Spring. I can tell you, I’m seriously looking forward to 2015: I have great expectation of fun projects and lots of writing and hopefully even a bit of flying. This year’s most popular posts are an interesting mix as…

Read more… 26 Dec 14

Dwarves, Orcs and Elves Take Flight with Air New Zealand

Air New Zealand, the official airline of Middle-Earth, have once again taken the world by storm with their safety video. They’ve called it The Most Epic Airline Safety Video Ever and it’s guaranteed to keep passengers’ attention during pre-flight announcements. Keep your eyes peeled for Frodo, Fili, and Radagast and even director Peter Jackson! Ian…

Read more… 24 Oct 14

Five Airbus A350-XWB in Formation

This week had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for plane spotters: Five Airbus A350-900 test aircraft flying in formation. The Airbus A350-900 received its type certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The FAA certification will follow. The A350-900 Type Certification comes after successfully finishing a stringent programme of certification trials which has taken its airframe…

Read more… 3 Oct 14

Flying Over the Alps in a Private Jet Simulator

One of the great things about aviation is that you get to meet the most amazing people. Take Murray Simpson: he’s a pilot with something close to a million trillion hours who learnt to fly in the Royal Air Force and later spent many years flying in East Africa before turning his eye towards corporate…

Read more… 22 Aug 14

Investigating Aircraft Accidents with David Corre

This excellent guest post is by Adam Wilcox who kindly allowed me to share it with you here. An interview with David Corre, aircrash investigator. “An aircraft accident is a very traumatic thing … the violence alone is something to be seen to be believed.” David Corre, his hands shaking from Parkinsons, looked me straight…

Read more… 23 May 14

Flying through the Stars

So, this doesn’t usually come up on this blog but in addition to wasting every waking moment on writing about airplanes, I also write science fiction, especially short stories. I’m super-excited because a short story that was published last year has been nominated for one of the top awards in the industry. The Science Fiction…

Read more… 16 May 14

Accident Reports

Preliminary Report on Lion Air flight 610

On the 29th of October 2018, Lion Air flight 610, a Boeing 737-8 (MAX) crashed at Tanjung Karawang, West Java after departing from Jakarta. On Wednesday, the KNKT (the Indonesian…

"It must be fictitious!" Aeroperu 603

On the 2nd of October in 1996, Aeroperú 603 made history with a frantic and heartbreaking 25-minute flight that ended with the loss of the aircraft and all on board.…

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…