Category: Rudy

Wine for the Soul

I’m thrilled to have another guest post by our very own Rudy Jakma! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. Wine for the Soul by Rudy Jakma You may have heard about the Beaujolais race? The fruity wine from the Beaujolais region in the south of France is sold after a few…

Read more… 1 May 20

More from the Lagos Flying Club, 1968

I’m pleased to share another post from Rudy and his early flying days during the Nigerian Civil War. All of the photographs were taken by Rudy at the time. It’s fascinating stuff; I hope you enjoy it as much as I have! -Sylvia More from the Lagos Flying Club, 1968 by Rudy Jakma When I…

Read more… 12 Apr 19

Part 2: Don’t Try This At Home (Rudy’s solo cross-country)

I’m so pleased to be able to share with you the second half of Rudy’s story of his first cross-country solo! In part one of my confessions of an old bold pilot, I wrote about my early flying. When you read the rest of the story, you might wonder how I ever became a commercial…

Read more… 1 Feb 19

Confessions of an Old Bold Pilot

Rudy Jakma was kind enough to share with me his story of how he got started in aviation, told in two parts. Rudy is known to regulars of the website for his fantastic and helpful comments and discussions on the posts. He never fails to add insight and explanations based on his long and varied…

Read more… 25 Jan 19

Rudy’s Operation Overlord

In response to popular demand, here is a guest post from Rudy Jakma. Rudy is a rare breed: an old, bold pilot who is still here to tell the tale. I asked him for some personal details to write a quick introduction and his response was too good to cut down. I’ve added it at…

Read more… 2 Mar 18

Accident Reports

Procedural Drift at Yeager Airport

In the early morning hours of the 5th of May 2017, Air Cargo Carriers flight 1260 crashed at Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia. There were two souls on board,…

Lion Air flight 610 and the AOA Disagree alert

I wrote before that Lion Air’s Boeing 737 had a faulty AOA sensor which was replaced the day before Lion Air flight 610. The new sensor was out of alignment…

Demystifying

"N28V, I need your call sign, please."

This general aviation accident didn’t happen on the 27th of April 2017, although I think you’ll agree with me that it was a near thing. The aircraft, a 1964 Mooney…

Aviation Airspeed Guide

Just a quick one today but I really liked this guide to the airspeed indicator which was published to r/aviation. The thread has ended up in an interesting discussion about…

History

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…

Flight 19: The Point of No Return

I was interviewed about Flight 19 for a documentary recently and although I’ve limited the details of the experience to supporters of my personal Patreon (for travel writing and essays),…

Fun Stuff

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…

Top Ten Posts of 2019

Next week we’ll be starting on a detailed look at Lion Air flight 610 but first, to celebrate the end of 2019, I want to share the most popular posts…