Latest Posts – Page 165
We’re Coming In
I didn’t do the flight to Blackpool this time so I got to take photographs. The sun was just starting to come down and we got gorgeous views of the coast and the tower and the Pleasure Beach. It is a bit odd to see a roller coaster on final approach. As we turned from…
Read more… 4 Dec 07
Fly Me
On days like this I want to have flown more than I want to fly. A single take-off and landing will bring me to a total of three this week, which means I can remain current until February with no further action on my part — useful over the winter months. I keep putting it…
Read more… 28 Nov 07
Things I’ve Learned
I have really learned a lot from doing the articles for the small mag that’s been taking my aviation pieces on a monthly basis. “Don’t describe the article in content and length before you’ve actually written it” is a biggie, who would have thought I would so often get it wrong? And not even in…
Read more… 3 Nov 07
If It’s Not One Thing
Today I received my first fan mail from a Piper Flyer reader, as it finally occurred to me that I could include my email address in my by-line. It was very exciting. I opened the email and read it slowly, trying to savour the moment. He wrote that he had read my article in the…
Read more… 30 Oct 07
The Night Before
I’m working on an article called Sylvia’s Mother at the moment (er, if you are my editor, read “working on” as “finishing off”. I swear you’ll have it by Friday) and wrote about my thoughts before taking my mom and my son up in the Saratoga. This is from my initial draft. I can’t help…
Read more… 17 Oct 07
Learning from the Masters
This is just a stunning landing you can watch on youtube: Look, ma! No wheels! Yes, I know, I owe you all a post. Soon, I promise. :)
Read more… 11 Oct 07
Accident Analysis
The Anatomy of an A350–CRJ Collision at Atlanta
On the 10th of September 2024, an Airbus A350 took the tail off of a Bombardier CRJ at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia, USA. Delta Air Lines flight 295…
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.…
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
Bird Strikes, Balloon Landings and Falling in Love with a Boeing 777
The exciting news on Fear of Landing this week was a huge scare about critical vulnerabilities in PHP. PHP is widely used on the web, including in WordPress, which is…
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…
