Wishing you an easy glide into 2025
27 Dec 24
31 Comments
Thank you for joining me for another year here at Fear of Landing. I’m looking forward to sharing more aviation stories with you in 2025!
Let’s gather in the comments! Tell me what you liked best or what you would like to see more of on Fear of Landing.
(if everyone says more guest posts, I will be miffed)
Category:
Miscellaneous
That’s some cool artwork!
The guest posts are a nice break from the usual, every so often, but I really come here for your in-depth and well-explained dissections of what went wrong.
So in other words, more of the same, and keep up the good work!
I still have nightmares over the horrifying one where the instruments went wrong and the pilots trusted them right into the ground.
Thanks for the support and I’m sorry about the nightmares! Mine is the one about the passengers pushing the pilots seat forward until he couldn’t fly :/
Wishing you a happy and prosperous New Year Sylvia, hope you had a nice Christmas. Looking forward to what stories you have in store for us in 2025 š
Happy New Year to you too, Guy, and I’m so happy to still be in touch!
Happy new year! Only discovered Fear of Landing a couple weeks ago but I’ve been backreading like mad. Thanks for being such an amazing writer :)
Welcome! That’s so great to hear and I’m glad that you are finding it fun to go through the site. I sometimes feel a bit sad that the algos of today are so focused on new content so it is really good to hear.
Have a Happy New Year!
Thank you! and you too!
From Alamo Heights, Texas, best wishes to you, Sylvia, and to all who visit here. Here’s hoping everyone on our little planet can live more peacefully in ’25.
That is the perfect New Year’s wish!
I like the guest additions and the accident reports which provide great detail. Hopefully in 2025 there will be less accidents to report and less loss of life.
Wishing you and yours a healthy 2025 Sylvia, from another avid follower!
I am glad to hear it — I do try very hard to make sure the guest posts are interesting and add value, despite my cheeky comment above. :)
Sylvia, and her followers:
I wish you all a very Happy 2025 and happy landings !
May the only “Fear of Landing” be reading Sylvia’s blogs (or interesting guest stories) and may your REAL landings be without any fear. Be they your own landings, or with another pilot at the controls.
For myself: Landing as a passenger in an aircraft scares me shitless, and I am utterly fearless !
(Quote: the late Colonel Martin J. (Barney) Barnard (ret. USAF fighter pilot who used to sign his letters with WGFP (the World’s Greatest Fighter Pilot). No small claim, but he survived WW 2, Korea and Vietnam. That sums it up.
Thank you Barney for an unforgettable trip from Wichita in 1979 to a large part of South America and back, and a subsequent delivery flight to Schiphol, Amsterdam. You taught me how to properly fly a Citation, even to how roll it.
In Memoriam. Barney, rest in Peace.
That’s such a great quote. Happy New Year to you, Rudy, and here’s to many more guest posts — you know you are everyone’s favourite :D
I love the variety we get from you, Sylvia. Sometimes, it is a recent and topical event and, at others, a little known accident. For me the key are the learnings.
Another aspect is CRM, especially when there are less experienced pilots involvedā¦intimidation, misogyny etc. Lot of learnings there.
And ATC ā¦the good, the bad and the ugly!
You do a great job here. All the best for 2025.
Thank you so much! When I first started this, I made a point of writing whatever I was fascinated by, rather than trying to tie myself to a template. Over time, that has turned into me thinking about how I can mix it up and keep different types of article coming. It’s nice to know it is appreciated.
Hi Sylvia and everyone, I greatly enjoy your web site and postings, Sylvia! I also like to read your articles about crashes etc. and what went wrong. I wish you and everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year. Bronwen Kathy Williams in Ontario Canada.
Thank you and Happy New Year to you! I’m always glad to see you in the comments.
A Happy and Safe New Year to you Sylvia and all of your readers.
Please keep up the great work. Even as a passenger, having been lucky to be carried in a wide range of air craft inc hot air balloon, airship, glider, helicopters, military, the usual airliners (inc an interesting demo flight in a 757) and exec.
Air incidents will always be with us, as I write this (Dec 29) the radio reports a crash landing with multiple fatalities.
Having your expertise and engaging writing style will help us make sense of them, understand learn and move forward.
That is quite a range — I am super jealoous of the hot air balloon and the military planes! But maybe this year will be the year I make it in to a helicopter.
Thank you for yet another year of blog entries! I’m always looking forward to them, and never disappointed. And of course best wishes for 2025 to everyone here!
As for feedback:
What stood out for me were your air show reports. Like your older “trip to the VOR” story, you can edit these for entertainment, while your accident analyses and background posts are edited more for clarityāwhich is a good thing! You do both very well. I for one would enjoy reading a short story or other piece of fiction from you during one of these “Sylvia is on holiday” stretches once a year (even if it’s not aviation related at all).
Topical posts often don’t paint the full picture; while you provide good background and analysis, there must be some speculation because the incidents are too fresh for all facts to be known. I enjoy follow-up posts when the full facts come out, and you often do that. Maybe you could do a collection post when they don’t warrant individual write-ups? Kinda like, once a year, “Full reports have come out on these incidents I blogged about at the time”, and then links and a paragraph on each one. I’ve done that in the comments when I randomly came across one, but it’d be nice to have a more systematic approach to it.
I’d love to see the Archies mentioned once a year, because otherwise I forget to look them up.
The one incident I expected you to blog about this year that you did not pick up was when N47280 suffered stuck rudder pedals on rollout. The NTSB investigated and found a systematic manufacturing defect, and that Boeing’s official pilot procedure is to simply stomp on the pedals hard enough. (It might’ve helped if I had sent you an email about it. ;-)
I love Fear Of Landing because you write on topics of interest to pilots and make them accessible to non-pilots such as myself, and I’m happy to hear I’m going to have another year of that ahead of me! Thank you!
This is super valuable feedback! I’m already thinking about integrating “news posts” into my pending system which means that they will resurface for me to check for the final report. It has certainly helped when you’ve commented on the original that the final report is out!
That case is on my list but yes, an email helps me to prioritise it … that list is currently 93 cases!
(not sure I’d dare go so far as fiction, though :D)
Happy New Year Sylvia; always an excellent site and recommended to many of my friends.
Yusef
Thank you and happy new year to you, Yusef! I know I’m not very active on Facebook anymore so it is nice to know you are still here!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year ! I particularly enjoy anecdotes, and sensible crash discussion.
And I read every post, very enjoyable site
Thank you! I cleaned up the double-post, stupid errors.
I look forward not to the accident reports themselves but to another year of information the press doesn’t cover and insightful analysis they don’t bother with. Have a happy and healthy whatever-you-celebrate.
And a happy healthy whatever to you, too! :D
Happy New Year Sylvia from Darwin!
Thank you! I hope 2025 has great things in store for all of us!