Latest Posts   –  Page 145

Vraic

Vraic is seaweed and seaweed, on Jersey, is life. The agriculture on Jersey, including the famous Jersey Royal potato, owe their success to the fertilising from the sea. The harvest lasted around two months in the Spring and records as far back as 1299 show that it was frequently the cause of quarrels and criminal…

Read more… 2 Mar 07

Say again?

As a result of a new link (or two) to this site, I’ve been asked, rather directly, what exactly it is that I’m doing. I wrote up this bio/description the other day which hopefully explains: I am a 39-year-old German-American (brought up in both countries) currently living in Spain with my British boyfriend and very…

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I like foreign places (except when they’re foreign)

I made a mistake. I pitched an aviation article which involves bitching about people not speaking English. Actually, it’s worse than that. This is about people in a foreign country who do speak English … and then there’s me, bitching that their English isn’t good enough. Ugh. Obviously, I didn’t realise that that’s what it…

Read more… 22 Feb 07

Chinese New Year Clean Up

Spent the day cleaning up — here on the blog various small things have been fixed up. Unfortunately, that means that subscribers probably got every post again as I changed the permalinks. But now it’s set up more usefully, where you see the category rather than the date as a part of the URL. I…

Read more… 15 Feb 07

Alderney Photographs

I love it when a random search drops me onto a website which was not, in any way, what I was looking for but absolutely interesting in its own right. Today I stumbled on this great collection of photographs of Alderney taken by CR LeCocq between 1900 and 1918: http://www.cipostcard.co.nz/lecocq.htm I especially love the shot…

Read more… 12 Feb 07

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

Mid-air Collision of Wingsuit Flyer and Pilatus PC-6

On the 27th of July 2018, an experienced pilot departed with ten parachutists on board for a routine drop mission. It was the pilot’s fourth flight of the day in…

Unravelling the 2010 Widerøe incident at Svolvær

You may remember this 2010 incident from Aviation Herald’s great reporting which led to international attention to the case. I wrote about Aviation Herald’s work on this in: 83ft above…

Demystifying

Descending into Illusion: The Black Hole Effect

With no moon or city lights to guide you, the runway lights up ahead should be a beacon of safety. However, it might be a trap known as the black…

Sharing a Runway: Fed Ex vs Southwest at Austin

On Monday, two commercial aircraft had a near-miss on the runway at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas. The airport at Austin has two parallel concrete runways which run north-to-south: 18L/36R…

History

The Wright brothers and the dream of flying

I’ve lost most of the day to unexpected research and one of the fascinating items that I discovered was the Air Force Historical Research Agency and their amazing photo collection.…

The Tragic Story of Submarine M-200 Myest

On the 21st of November 1956, the M-200 Myest (Месть, meaning vengeance or revenge) collided with a Russian destroyer and sunk to the bottom of the Baltic. The M-200 Myest…

Fun Stuff

A Few Good Stories

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…

Flying Fails and Airshow Considerations

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…