Latest Posts – Page 88
British Airtours Flight 28M – The Components of a Disaster
When morning broke on the 22nd of August 1985, the crew and passengers of a charter flight to Corfu could have no idea that they were going to make aviation history with one of the worst accidents in Britain. This accident remains in every text book as defining the issues for procedures on the ground…
Read more… 19 Aug 16
The most expensive plane in the world
I’m away on holiday (Cuba!!) at the moment. Luckily, Tatiana has volunteered to write another post based on photographs logged in Picryl, where she works. Her last post was fascinating so I’m excited to see what she’s sharing with us this week! Northrop B-2 Spirit Bomber is the most expensive flying machine in the world,…
Read more… 14 Aug 16
Disaster at the Air Show
ONE OF THE MOST tragic accidents in recent history is hard to reach concrete conclusions about because there are no published investigation results and no final report to be read. The accident took place at Sknyliv Airport, near Lviv in the Ukraine, in July 2002. Fourteen years later, the local community has still not recovered.…
Read more… 5 Aug 16
MH370 in the news again
So there’s been an influx of headlines about Malaysia Airlines flight 370. The real news is that Malaysia, China and Australia have agreed that the current search is to be completed, after which they will suspend the search. Operational Update 20 July 2016 Consistent with the undertaking given by the Governments of Australia, Malaysia and…
Read more… 29 Jul 16
Wrong Way Corrigan mistakes Ireland for California
The story of how Douglas Corrigan ended up in Ireland while aiming for California is one of my favourites. In fact, I feel sure that I’ve written about him before*. It was seventy-eight years ago, the 17th of July in 1938, when Douglas Corrigan earned the nickname “Wrong Way Corrigan”. He started his aviation career…
Read more… 22 Jul 16
The Glorious Details of the South Pole Rescue
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the Twin Otter Emergency Winter Flight to the South Pole, when it became clear that a rescue mission was needed to land at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in the dead of winter. Point of no return: 5 hrs. Despite extra tanks, Twin Otter doesn’t carry enough…
Read more… 15 Jul 16
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…
