This is one of my favourite aviation stories of all time, honestly, just for the headline potential. Man in Australia Arrested for Driving Wingless Plane to Bar Plane Taxied Down Main Street to Newman Pub Fine for man who taxied plane down Newman street and stopped at pub The original incident, which took place in…
Read more… 16 Mar 18
I am thrilled and relieved and excited to tell you all that the first volume of my book Without a Trace is now out and available at all good e-bookstores. This volume covers a range of aviation vehicles from balloons to airships to single-engine planes to jet airliners to high-tech special reconnaisance jets flying three…
Read more… 9 Mar 18
In response to popular demand, here is a guest post from Rudy Jakma. Rudy is a rare breed: an old, bold pilot who is still here to tell the tale. I asked him for some personal details to write a quick introduction and his response was too good to cut down. I’ve added it at…
Read more… 2 Mar 18
Earlier this month, on the 11 of February 2018, an Antonov An-148 disappeared from radar shortly after take-off from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport. The aircraft was operated by Saratov Airlines for domestic flight 703 and was carrying six crew and 65 passengers. The wreckage was discovered near Argunovo village, about 125 km (78 miles) south of…
Read more… 23 Feb 18
On the 10th of November 2015, a BAe 125 operated by Execuflight crashed into an apartment building while on approach to Akron Fulton International Airport. The captain, the first officer and seven passengers died. I looked at the flight in Trouble in the Cockpit: Execuflight 1526 Part One. The key question, which we discussed in…
Read more… 16 Feb 18
On the 10th of November 2015, Execuflight flight 1526 was a British Aerospace HS 127-700A chartered for a flight across Ohio from Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport in Dayton to Akron Fulton International Airport. The British Aerospace 125 is a twin-engine mid-size corporate jet, designed by de Havilland as a small business jet (under the much cooler…
Read more… 9 Feb 18
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…
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…
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…