Latest Posts – Page 8
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 all the good food and drink. Mendel brings on the holiday cheer with a hilarious video for us. Perhaps you were wondering if an old…
Read more… 26 Dec 25
Five Aircraft in Two (Three?) Days
Earlier this month, as a result of personal circumstances and bad timing, I ended up needing to fly in five different aircraft over the course of a few days, trying to get from Buenos Aires to Tallinn to El Paso (not to mention three buses, two trains and a taxi). “It’s a good thing you like…
Read more… 19 Dec 25
Nathan Pyle Strange Worlds
Thank you so much for all the kind words. I don’t quite have the wherewithal to respond to each of you individually but I very much appreciate all of you who offered condolences and thoughtful comments. One person sent me this comic which actually made me laugh out loud. Nathan Pyle is an American cartoonist…
Read more… 12 Dec 25
Holding Pattern
My mother has died after a terrible stroke. I’m in New Mexico now, dealing with everything that follows, and I’m struggling with it all. There won’t be a post this week. I’ll be back next Friday.
Read more… 5 Dec 25
Fear of Landing Grounded Briefly
I am going to have to take a week or two off. I was already overloaded, and now there has been a family emergency that requires my full and immediate attention. Unfortunately I don’t have anything already lined up, so I’m afraid you may need to get by without me for a bit. I’m in…
Read more… 28 Nov 25
Dangerous Take Off in Guyana
On the 6th November 2025, the residents of a small Indigenous community in Guyana’s South Rupununi looked up from their errands to see a Cessna Grand Caravan landing on the road bside their brand-new secondary school. The Caravan, registered in Guyana as 8R-THR and operated by Air Services Limited, had departed normally from Eugene F.…
Read more… 21 Nov 25
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…
The Mystery of the Caged Tyres and the Porcupine Who Flew Home
This photograph was posted to r/shittyaskflying, a subreddit dedicated to asking silly questions and giving silly answers. In this case, the photograph is enough to make one wonder what’s going…
