Latest Posts – Page 125
5 Surprising Facts about Black Boxes
Today, aircrash investigations centre around the black box – that is, the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR). I have always thought of them as rather straight forward: one collects flight data and the other records voices in the cockpit. However, when I started to do some research about flight recorders,…
Read more… 27 Apr 12
Motion Induced Blindness
I received this from reader Albert Masetti as a demonstration on eye fixation. Michael Bach, a Professor at the University of Freiburg has a full page of Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena. The strength of this site is that he allows for controls for each of the illusions, so that you can check for yourself…
Read more… 20 Apr 12
Flying Through Space
I am going to be spending the weekend at Eastercon, an annual science fiction and fantasy extravaganza. If you are attending, please come and say hello! I’ll be speaking on the panel on Social Media in Science Fiction on Monday afternoon. So I’m not around for a new post today. In keeping with the Eastercon…
Read more… 6 Apr 12
JetBlue Captain Break Down
The headlines have been full of the story of the Captain of a JetBlue flight who panicked on board and was locked out of the cockpit. In the interests of not arguing with everyone I meet, here is a run-down of what happened, unembellished by media excitements. Let’s get this out of the way first:…
Read more… 30 Mar 12
Flying Dutchman Hoax
This flying like a bird video was released on Monday and swiftly shared around the aviation community. In this two minute video, Janos Smeets shares the success of his 8 month long project to fly with “human bird wings” that he developed based on principles from Leonardo DaVinci. Last August he wrote that he was…
Read more… 23 Mar 12
Continental Appeal Involuntary Manslaughter Conviction
In 2010, Continental Airlines was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the Air France Flight 4590 disaster in Paris a decade earlier. Continental called the judgement “absurd” and vowed to appeal. That appeal has now started in Versaille this month. The crash, in July 2000, is described as “the beginning of the end” of Concorde’s commercial…
Read more… 16 Mar 12
Accident Analysis
Social Media Influencers Weigh Down Aircraft
The fatal crash at Scottsdale Arizona took place directly after take-off. The passengers were a self-proclaimed crowd of social media influencers. The jet-setting influencer who had organised the flight, had…
Fatal SR22 Stall on Final at Barwick LaFayette
On the 20th of March, 2025, a Cirrus SR22 crashed in LaFayette, Georgia during an instructional flight, killing both the pilot and the flight instructor. It was a good flying…
Demystifying
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”…
The Pilots, the Probes, and the AF447 Verdict
On the 21st of May 2026, the Paris Court of Appeal convicted Airbus and Air France of involuntary manslaughter for their roles in the crash of Air France flight 447,…
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…
