Category: Writing –  Page 2

And then I promptly went onto a diet

I needed a photograph of me and the plane to go alongside an article I wrote for a US magazine. It was an amusing photoshoot at Elstree in the rain/snow: I was OK as I was in the cockpit smiling broadly, but poor Cliff was outside leaning on the wing (and the aileron, as you…

Read more… 2 Feb 07

Accident Reports

Bird Opens Cargo Door on A320

On the 20th of June in 2011, an Airbus A320-212, registration CS-TKJ, taxied to runway 05 at Aeroporto de Madeira for a scheduled morning flight from Funchal to Copenhagen with…

Alitalia flight 404: The result of a dozen small decisions

Last week, we looked at the key events that led to the Alitalia flight 404 crash. A few points from the previous post: Maintenance replaced both radio receivers in the…

Demystifying

I am a teapot

A reader contacted me to ask about a missing flight 404; they had heard on a trivia podcast that the original computer error message 404 was based on two flights…

The Legend of the Ghost of Kyiv

On the 25th of February 2022, Plane & Pilot magazine shared a video of the “Ghost of Kyiv” overflying Kyiv in a Ukrainian MiG-29. An unnamed Ukrainian fighter pilot shot…

History

Avro York Runway Excursion at Stansted

While researching another subject, I discovered this accident report from 1956 which I just had to share with you. Normally, an aviation accident investigation is done by a group of…

Amazing Aerial View of Edinburgh

When I first saw this image, I assumed it was result of modern image manipulations, maybe even the poster for a film. It was too perfect and too modern to…

Fun Stuff

Funniest Thing You've Heard On the Radio

I’ve been struggling this week and was just panicking that I would not have a post finished in time for you for today when I discovered that Reddit had saved…

A Little Bit of Everything

There’s so much great aviation writing and video out there and I’m always appreciative when people send me fun things; it seems a shame not to share them! So here’s…