Latest Posts – Page 26
Calling in sick
I tested positive for COVID today. This is the second time and I feel like death. My timing is a little off: I was booked for a booster on Wednesday. Here’s an interesting article about DIY Ice Cream in Wartime (Take one Corsair, 5 ammo cans, canned milk and circle at 33,000 feet.) Now if…
Read more… 1 Dec 23
Melting Windows
On the 4th of October 2023, an Airbus A321neo located in London Stansted was prepared for a multi-day charter flight in the US. There were three pilots and six cabin crew on board, as well as an engineer and a loadmaster. This first flight was repositioning the aircraft and crew from London to Orlando International…
Read more… 24 Nov 23
Axalp Fliegerschiessen Demonstration 2023
The Swiss night sky was full of stars as I hiked up the mountain to the air show. It was a few degrees above zero and the lights of the village below looked dim and far away. Ahead, the black silhouette of a ridge against the dark blue night sky twinkled a long line of…
Read more… 17 Nov 23
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 the sea at night and no investigation?. Initially, the Norwegian authorities dismissed the idea that the incident required official attention. Only after significant pressure from…
Read more… 10 Nov 23
Archie League Medal of Safety – President’s Award 2023
The 19th Annual Archie League Medal of Safety Awards ceremony took place in Las Vegas, Nevada on the 20th of September. The Archie League Medal is an annual event by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) in the US. This year, the awards presentations took place at the Communicating for Safety Conference and the…
Read more… 3 Nov 23
I am not OK: Horizon Air flight 2059
On Sunday, the 22nd of October, Horizon Air flight 2059 was on a scheduled passenger flight from Everett in Washington to San Francisco, California. The aircraft was a four-year-old Embraer ERJ-175. The flight was full, with eighty passengers, two flight crew and two cabin crew on board. One of the passengers was an off-duty pilot…
Read more… 27 Oct 23
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…
