Latest Posts – Page 5
Outtakes from the Air Show
I’m still on the road and using the quiet hours to work through my photographs from the air show. Aviation photography sure does have a way of revealing one’s limitations! The aircraft fly faster than I expect. The framing is just a few feet off. Someone stands up in excitement and photobombs the shot. Another…
Read more… 1 May 26
Ferry Tank Failure: Successful SR22 Ditching in the Pacific
In 2015, I shared a video of an SR22 whose pilot successfully deployed his Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) off of the coast of Maui, Hawai’i. I wrote at the time that I would update once the final report came out. I am rather behind on my todo list, I’m afraid. The Cirrus SR22 is at…
Read more… 24 Apr 26
Meowing on Guard (an attempt at an explanation)
Last week a video went viral and it’s been fun to see the mainstream media coverage try to cover two pilots who were heard making animal noises on the radio. There’s a lot of contextual knowledge and lore to understand what happened here, so although the actual event really isn’t worth a news headline, it is…
Read more… 18 Apr 26
I wanted to post this from 30,000 feet
I’m in transit this week, somewhere between time zones, airport coffee, and the unsettling suspicion that I’ve forgotten something important. The article about a double-engine failure that I planned to finish in advance kept getting more complicated. At the point where I thought “maybe this is a three-part article”, I realised that I wasn’t going…
Read more… 10 Apr 26
Flying To the Moon!
History was made this week when Artemis II lifted off from Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket roared to life at 18:35 local time on the 1st of April with four on board the spacecraft capsule Orion: three NASA astronauts from the US, and…
Read more… 3 Apr 26
A Preventable Collision on Runway 4
On the 22nd of March 2026, a landing jet struck a fire truck that a controller had cleared onto the active runway at LaGuardia Airport in New York, the first fatal accident at LaGuardia in 34 years. Somewhat bizarrely, the previous accident, when USAir flight 405 crashed on take-off after ice buildup on the wings, occurred…
Read more… 27 Mar 26
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…
