Category: Miscellaneous –  Page 4

Actual Search Terms for Fear of Landing

One of the odd and amusing things about running Fear of Landing is discovering how visitors found the website. My favourite report is the search engine terms. If someone searches on key words or a phrase and then my website comes up in the list of relevant sites, they can click straight through to Fear…

Read more… 23 Jan 15

A Drone and the Man who Loves It

I have posted a few times about the dangers of drones but this video shows what can be done with a remote controlled model aircraft. It has everything: suspense, intrigue and action. It’s the touching story between a drone at the edge of its life and the Dutchman who loves it. Zwier Spanjer got a…

Read more… 9 Jan 15

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

Accident Reports

ATC and the Pilot Who Turned Back

Last week we looked at a general aviation crash in which the pilot reported a Mayday as a result of an engine failure. Eight minutes later, the pilot crashed into…

The Pilot Turned Back: Engine Failure Leads to Fatal Crash

On the 26th of July a single-engine light aircraft crashed in the woods near Colbert, Oklahoma while attempting a forced landing. The pilot had reported his emergency ten minutes earlier…

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…