Latest Posts – Page 122
Planes, more planes and well, even more planes
This week there were so many interesting things in the news, the best thing that I could do was gather them all together for you to enjoy them with me. Felix Baumgartner’s 23-Mile-High Skydive Aborted Due To Wind | Popular Science 12:27am MDT – Thompson in response to a journalist’s question about syncing the delay…
Read more… 12 Oct 12
Flying into the Storm
Ken White is a flight instructor at Tailwheels in Florida and an amazing pilot. The son of a pilot and A&P mechanic, he’s spent time in the U.S Air Force as a cargo transportation specialist, contingency response group (CRG) member, and currently serves with the Florida Air National Guard as a jet propulsion technician for…
Read more… 5 Oct 12
The Galloping Ghost crashes into spectators at Reno NCAR
On the 16th of September in 2011, at the National Championship Air Races at Reno, Nevada, a small aircraft lost control and crashed into a spectator box. The Galloping Ghost, an experimental single-seater P-51D, was travelling at about 445 knots (512 mph) in the third lap of a six-lap race. Coming past pylons 6 and…
Read more… 28 Sep 12
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
The Worst Aircraft Ever Constructed
Dr William Whitney Christmas (1865-1960) loved planes. He claimed to be one of the first aeroplane pilots: Dr Christmas said that he made his first flight in 1908 but he burned the aircraft in order to protect his design secrets. In his lifetime he patented 300 inventions to do with aviation. This, despite the fact…
Read more… 14 Sep 12
“We Have Some Planes” – A timeline of events on September 11th
Over a decade later, I am writing about the September 11 attacks for the first time. Initially it was just too raw and I couldn’t stand to try to analyse the situation when my own emotions were so close to the surface. Then, each anniversary, it seemed like everyone was writing about it and I…
Read more… 7 Sep 12
Accident Analysis
Why KLM Cut the Steering Cables on Two Perfectly Functional Boeing 737s
Last month, we looked at the night of 28th of November 2004 at Barcelona Airport. KLM 1673 ran off the runway at high speed, stopping just short of a canal.…
KLM 1673 Veers Off the Runway with Full Right Rudder
On the 28th of November 2004, a Boeing B737 ran off the runway at Barcelona Airport. The weather had been good at Barcelona that evening. The flight crew agreed to land…
Demystifying
How Important is Having a Sterile Cockpit?
This question was posted to r/flying by a private pilot who wanted to know: do airline pilots ever engage in small talk about irrelevant things during taxiing, run-up, takeoff, and…
Someone has to write the TAF
It turns out that there a person sitting there deciding what the weather is going to do. Which seems obvious, except that I had somehow never asked msyelf who “someone”…
History
The CIA's Shark Screen
Today we have a guest post from the CIA! In their archives, researching something completely different, I found the answer to a question I never thought to ask. I immediately…
The First Jet to Land on an Aircraft Carrier (Deliberately)
“The Vampire was the first jet to land on a moving aircraft carrier deliberately.” This quote from Airshow Luke, our MC at the Legacy of Liberty airshow, made me almost…
Fun Stuff
Petrified, Petrified, Petrified
There’s been some interesting reporting in the UK media about a “near disaster” over Canary Wharf involving the captain having to intervene (the horror!) after air data systems failed on…
Aviation Stories You Might Have Missed
I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season. This week, I’ve put together a compilation of interesting items in the press that you might have missed while enjoying…
