Category: Photography

Plane vs Truck

This photograph is so remarkably perfectly timed, I thought it must be a still from an action movie or television series, done with special effects. It turns out it’s absolutely a case of impeccable photography by Mr Robert W Madden, who was at the right place at the right time and managed to frame the…

Read more… 12 Dec 14

Project Habu: Thirty SR-71 Blackbirds in Photographs

The Lockheed SR-71 has broken every speed and altitude record held by aircraft: faster than a speeding bullet and able to fly in the top 1% of our atmosphere. The jet was designed in the 1960s, at the peak of the Cold War, as a reconnaissance jet that could operate at high speeds (Mach 3.5+)…

Read more… 27 Jun 14

The Story Behind an Unbelievable Photograph

A reader mailed me this amazing aviation photograph and I knew I wanted to know more. I was surprised at how much I discovered about the photo, which at first glance I thought might be a fake. But the story of who took the photograph and how he managed to get the shot is a…

Read more… 1 Nov 13

Last Journey of the Endeavour

This week, the space shuttle Endeavour travelled across the U.S. to its final destination of Los Angeles, where it will be on display as a part of the California Science Center. The Endeavour completed 25 missions, spent 299 days in orbit and orbited the Earth 4,671 times while travelling 122,883,151 statute miles. The fleet was…

Read more… 21 Sep 12

Stunning Norwegian Scenery

In June, Christian Semcesen and the other members of his flying club in Oslo, Norway, flew 500 nautical miles from Kjeller Airport (ENKJ) to Bodø (ENBO) for an airshow. The planes: two ex-Norwegian Army Cubs, two Tiger Moths, a PT-19 Cornell and a Chipmunk, Bird Dog, a Broussard and a T-6 Texan. Christian flew the…

Read more… 3 Aug 12

Wish You Were Here (Webcam Roundup)

This video of a frozen plane was posted to reddit and made me shiver: “After a night of freezing rain, this is what we showed up to. Almost an inch of pure ice on almost every surface of the plane. Even the antennas were completely cased in ice.” It struck me because today is a…

Read more… 27 Jan 12

Accident Reports

Have You Ever Flown a Barrel Roll at Night?

On the 14th of February in 2010, a private jet disappeared from radar in German airspace eleven minutes after taking off for a routine ferry flight from the Czech Republic…

Experimental Jet Crashes in Mojave

On the 13th of May in 2016, a Seguin Quickie, registration N68TQ, crashed in Mojave, CA. If you don’t recognise the aircraft type, that’s because there’s only one in existence.…

Demystifying

The 1% rule and air disaster avoidance

I asked my friend, Robert Dawson, to help me understand the numbers behind risk assessment and the 1% rule. Robert writes fantastic science fiction and poetry, however I contacted him…

Airplane Pens

This is a bit of a short post today to make up for all the heavy posts recently. Me, I’m enjoying the long weekend and a bit of sunshine… This…

History

The Story of the Avro Lancaster LM650 KM-T

I became interested in this story last year, when a reader named Niall left a comment about this rather odd item for sale on Ebay: What was the story of…

Amelia Earhart Captured By Japanese

On Wednesday, the news hit the headlines that a newly discovered photograph could show Amelia Earhart in Japanese custody. The photograph, apparently taken by a US spy in the 1930s,…

Fun Stuff

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…

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…