Latest Posts – Page 168
Keep the Runway Lights On
The weather played along: I was able to fly every evening last week. A minor hitch came up with the the plane being an N-reg (registered in the US). We sorted it out by using this darling TB10, a friendly, light plane that seemed eager to please; not something I’d ever say about the Saratoga!…
Read more… 20 Mar 07
Fly by Night
Next week I’m back in the saddle, getting to grips with the Saratoga and all her quirks after a quiet winter. I’ll be flying at Kidlington in Oxford, as they are friendly to general aviation, convenient from London, and have lights.Night rating, here I come. Flying VFR at night is, well, as different as night…
Read more… 8 Mar 07
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…
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
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…
