On 17 January 2008, British Airways Flight 38 crash-landed short of the runway at Heathrow Airport. At the time, the newspapers were filled with mad speculation about the cause of the accident, ranging from computer failures, bird strikes, electronic glitches, low quality fuel and wind shear. Within two days I had had enough of the…
Read more… 28 May 10
A collection of aviation links that I honestly shouldn’t be amused by, but I am. Sometimes you just have to laugh. JetBlue Pilot Threatens To Crash Plane Leaving From Boston If Girlfriend Doesn’t Reconcile – wbztv.com The pilot, who has not been identified, was taken into custody at Logan for allegedly sending an email to…
Read more… 21 May 10
Last Sunday I heard about a surprising incident at North Weald, one of my favourite airfields and the location where the Saratoga is currently parked and waiting for me to pay it some attention. It seems that this Aero AT-3 was coming into land when something went wrong. The main runway was closed for a…
Read more… 14 May 10
(Something from the archives: a 2008 post about Air Traffic Service Units in the UK and my native ability to talk too much. I’ll be back with fresh content next week.) Air/Ground Radio Airfields with A/G Radio offer an information service with a radio operator who are not licensed and not under close CAA supervision.…
Read more… 7 May 10
I’m not one to get excited by big planes but I love this video of Boeing building Southwest’s “Florida One”. From the Southwest Airlines website: Date unveiled: April 23, 2010 Process time: 8 days Number of People: 32 over 3 shifts Paint colors: 16 Total gallons: Approximately 46 Premask (stencil outline): 15 boxes or approximately…
Read more… 30 Apr 10
The ash from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland has had a very personal knock-on effect on our household. Connor, my son, was supposed to fly to England to return to school after his Easter break and his flights were one of the many cancelled. The Saratoga was parked in England so we couldn’t transport…
Read more… 23 Apr 10
The Cessna 185 Skywagon is a high wing, single engine aircraft: basically a Cessna 180 with six seats, a strengthened fuselage and a slightly more powerful engine. It’s a popular…
On the 4th of June 2022, a Bell 407 GXP helicopter crashed in a field near Fairfield, New Jersey. I wrote about it at the time. The final report and…
My friend Maria at Daedalean wrote this article about how they are using AI to help pilots detect gliders. I thought it was fascinating and Daedalean gave me permission to…
On the 5th of January 2024, Alaska Airlines flight 1282 had just taken off when it lost a door plug, leaving a gaping hole on the left side of row…
This video of a mid-air wheel exchange goes viral once a year or so, but I never get tired of watching it. Last week, it showed up on Reddit and…
This week, we have a guest post by J.B. Rivard who wrote an article for the American Aviation Historical Society (AAHS) and used one of my articles as a reference.…
I’m in Dresden at the moment and I’m afraid I haven’t had a free moment to write you a new article. Luckily, lots of other people are on the internet…
Long-term readings of Fear of Landing know that my favourite aerobatics show of all time is Kyle Franklin’s Ben Whabnoski Comedy act. Just in case some of you haven’t seen…