I have been sitting on this collection for some time now but I feel like we could use a bit of light humour today. I share these stories not to dissuade anyone from learning to fly but instead (I hope!) to encourage students; no matter how poorly you reacted to your first stall, I bet…
Read more… 30 Jun 23
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 was a Malyutka-class small torpedo submarine of the XV series, built in Leningrad in 1940. The XV series was an extended version with six watertight…
Read more… 23 Jun 23
Yesterday, two F-5 Tiger aircraft collided over Central Switzerland during a practice flight. The Patrouille Suisse is one of four Swiss Air Force aerobatic teams. Formed in 1964, the team has been flying F-5 Tigers since 1995. All of the team members are military pilots or air traffic controllers who perform with the Patrouille Suisse…
Read more… 16 Jun 23
The aircraft was a Grumman American AA-5, a four-seater light aircraft developed by American Aviation, which was bought out by Grumman shortly after production started. Registered in the UK as G-BBSA, the Traveler was forty-seven years old. This was one of the original AA-5 Travelers, which ceased production after only one year to be replaced…
Read more… 9 Jun 23
Last week was the RAeS Future Combat Air & Space Capabilities Summit. This was organised by the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) to discuss the future of combat air and space capabilities. The summit centred around presentations and to discuss the future of air and space combat power. The summit took place in London with 70…
Read more… 2 Jun 23
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 the 2009 video that Kyle gave me permission to share, I’ll include it here (if you are reading from the mailing list, click through to…
Read more… 26 May 23
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.…
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”…
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…
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…