Latest Posts – Page 169
Locals just call it “the Island”
I’m finally getting around to organising my photographs and the shots from the Isle of Wight are rapidly appearing on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/landing/sets/72157600034671389/ Did you know there was an Isle of Wight County in Virginia? I first realised that I might have gone astray when I saw that “the Isle of Wight Museum offers Indian artifacts,…
Read more… 29 Mar 07
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
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…
