What do you get when you combine a popular airport for plane spotters with a stormy forecast and a crosswind on the runway? The perfect storm. On the 21st of February 2017, the Met Office issued yellow and amber warnings for wind, snow and rain as Storm Doris began to gather steam. On the night…
Read more… 3 Mar 17
Today is the 99th anniversary of Estonian independence. Sadly, that doesn’t mean 99 years of independence. The auspicious date seems like a good opportunity for a historical post covering the most famous aviation incident in Estonian territory: when the Finnish passenger plane Kaleva was shot down by Soviet bombers as it was departing Tallinn. Kaleva…
Read more… 24 Feb 17
On the 17th of October in 2013, an Italian Air Force aircraft departed Tallinn Airport (Estonia) for Rome Ciampino Airport. The Dassault Falcon 900 is a French-built corporate jet aircraft. It was flown by an experienced pilot who was rated as an instructor in the Italian Air Force. The aircraft departed Tallinn at 14:51 UTC…
Read more… 17 Feb 17
On the 31st of January in 2014, an Estonian aircraft registration ES-PJR ran off the side of the runway at Torsby airport in Sweden. The aircraft was a BAe Jetstream 3200 (J32), a low-wing twin turboprop aircraft popular for small passenger services. The J32 seats up to 19 passengers. The J32 was operated by AS…
Read more… 10 Feb 17
Today I’ve got a guest post from my friend Poppy Gallagher who is writing about what one would expect to be America’s favourite aircraft: Air Force One. I hope you find it interesting. Back in 2016, Trump repeatedly expressed his distaste for Air Force One, having previously called it ‘ridiculous’ and ‘totally out of control’…
Read more… 9 Feb 17
Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport (Tallinna lennujaam) is the largest airport in Estonia. It serves as a hub for Estonian airline Nordica as well as the secondary hub for AirBaltic and LOT Polish Airlines. Over the past year, Tallinn has worked to expand its single asphalt-concrete runway to 3,070 metres but at the time, in 2010,…
Read more… 3 Feb 17
On the 19th of February 2023, a private pilot arranged to meet with a flight instructor at Birr Airfield to fly a Cessna 172 Skyhawk. That morning, the flight instructor…
On the 9th of August 2024 at 16:22, Voepass flight 2283, a scheduled flight from Cascavel, Paraná, to Guarulhos, São Paulo entered a flat spin and crashed into a residential…
There are a number of reasons why you might need to quickly point out the differences between a General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and a Eurofighter EF2000 Typhoon. You might…
A few days ago (21st of May 2024), Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 encountered heavy turbulence on a passenger flight from London-Heathrow to Singapore. There were 229 on board, including eighteen…
This video of a mid-air wheel exchange goes viral once a year or so, but I never get tired of watching it. Last week, it showed up on Reddit and…
This week, we have a guest post by J.B. Rivard who wrote an article for the American Aviation Historical Society (AAHS) and used one of my articles as a reference.…
Mistakes were made. All of them were mine. Before I left for Dresden, I planned out my full itinerary. Berlin is a much busier airport than Tallinn, so I needed…
I’m in Dresden at the moment and I’m afraid I haven’t had a free moment to write you a new article. Luckily, lots of other people are on the internet…