FAA Controller Pay Raise: NATCA Deal Unlocks 2.8% After Months
Share this story America’s air traffic controllers are finally getting the raise Congress approved for them in April. On Friday, 16 October, the US Department of Transportation and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) announced a deal that...
GA Telesis Parts Out Its First Boeing 737 MAX 8 for Spares
Share this story Airliners are usually broken up for parts when they are old, tired and worth more as spares than as aeroplanes. The Boeing 737 MAX 8 is none of those things. It is one of the two most in-demand narrowbodies on the planet, with airlines waiting years...
Tesla’s Flying Roadster: SpaceX Thrusters, a Flip and an FAA Puzzle
Share this story The car drove up a ramp that curled over until it was hanging upside down, stuck to the concrete by its own suction. Then it ran off the end into thin air, fired its thrusters, flipped itself upright and settled onto its wheels. That was the opening...
FAA 51 Percent Rule: What “Amateur-Built” Actually Means
Share this story Somewhere over the Sonoran Desert there is a yellow and blue two-seater turning in the evening light, and the person who owns it also built it. Not assembled it from a crate over a weekend. Built it, over several years, in a garage, with a rivet gun....
MQ-9 Reaper vs Radar: Why Big Drones Are Easy to Find
Share this story A Reaper does not sneak. It orbits. For twenty hours at a stretch it flies long, patient racetracks over somebody else’s country at the speed of a fast train, hauling a sensor turret and a pair of Hellfires, in full view of anything with a radar...
Cockpit Jumpseat Explained: Who Gets to Ride Up Front
Share this story Behind the two pilot seats on almost every airliner there is a small fold-down seat, sometimes two. It is called the jumpseat, and it is one of the most coveted seats in aviation. Off-duty pilots ride it to get to work. FAA inspectors use it to check...
What Happens to a Retired Airliner: Storage, Part-Out and Recycling
Share this story On 14 October 2026, SWISS flew its Airbus A340 HB-JMB for the last time: one hour from Zurich to Twente in the Netherlands, where it will be taken apart. It is one of hundreds of airliners that reach the end of their lives every year. Most passengers...
FAA Flight Deck Training Returns: Controllers Back in the Cockpit
Share this story Air traffic controllers spend their whole careers talking to cockpits they almost never get to sit in. That is about to change again. On Wednesday, 14 October, the FAA announced that it is bringing back its Flight Deck Training program, which lets...
SWISS A340 HB-JMB Retired: First of the Last Four Goes to Twente
Share this story There was no press release and no farewell party. On Wednesday, 14 October, SWISS Airbus A340-300 HB-JMB took off from Zurich as flight LX5202, rocked its wings three times in salute, and flew for about an hour to Twente airport near Enschede in the...
SR-71 Inlet Spike Explained: How the Blackbird Tamed Shock Waves at Mach 3
Share this story Look at an SR-71 head-on and the most striking thing is the pair of sharp cones in the front of its engine nacelles. They are not decoration. At Mach 3 those spikes, and the doors and ducts behind them, did a job no jet engine of the time could do on...
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