Vapor Cone Explained: Why the White Cloud Is Not the Sound Barrier
Share this story On 7 July 1999, Ensign John Gay was on the highest deck of the aircraft carrier USS Constellation when an F/A-18C Hornet tore past wrapped in a white bell of cloud. The nose and canopy were clear. The rest of the jet seemed to be bursting out of a...
Mary Ellis: The ATA Pilot Who Flew 400 Spitfires Without a Radio
Share this story The Wellington rolled to a stop at an airfield in East Anglia, and the ground crew went looking for its pilot. They would not believe it was the young woman who had climbed down from the cockpit. “They actually went inside the aeroplane and...
Erling Haaland Sues Norwegian Air Over a Ponytail on a Plane
Share this story For more than two decades, Norwegian Air Shuttle has flown other people’s faces around Europe. Greta Garbo has gazed out from the fin of a Boeing 737-800. Sonja Henie, Thor Heyerdahl and Edvard Munch have taken their turns up there too. This...
Viva Forever: Virgin Atlantic A330neo Honours Joan Branson
Share this story A fair-haired woman in a flowing red dress flies across the nose of Virgin Atlantic’s newest jet, a Union flag streaming beside her. Look closer and the underside of her skirt is tartan. Beneath her feet are two words: Viva Forever. Virgin...
El Al, Israir and Arkia Ask to Resume Dubai Flights
Share this story It took about five minutes for El Al to sell every seat on its first two rescue flights out of Dubai. By Friday morning, both flights were cancelled. Landing approval for Israeli airlines in Dubai had been withdrawn overnight, El Al said. Israeli...
Epic E1000 AX Autoland Certified, With Buttons Across the Cabin
Share this story On a single-pilot flight, one medical emergency in the left seat can leave everyone else aboard in an aircraft none of them can fly. Garmin’s answer, unveiled in 2019, is Autoland: press a button and the avionics handle everything from choosing...
Catalina Helicopter Crash: Three Killed Aboard REACH Air Ambulance
Share this story At about 7:45 pm on Wednesday 30 September, a REACH Air Medical Services EC135 air ambulance lifted off from the Pebbly Beach heliport on Santa Catalina Island, about a mile from Avalon, carrying a patient to the mainland. Within moments it was in the...
Red Sprites: The Lightning Above Storms Pilots Reported for Decades
Share this story For decades, some pilots who flew near big thunderstorms at night came home with a story they were reluctant to tell. Above the storm, well above the cloud tops where lightning has no business being, they had seen flashes of light shooting upward into...
How the B-2 Navigates by the Stars: Astro-Inertial Navigation Explained
Share this story Somewhere on the upper surface of every B-2 Spirit is a small round window that has nothing to do with the crew. Behind it sits a telescope that looks for stars. While the bomber flies, that system measures the angles to known stars and uses them to...
Stratolaunch Roc: The Widest Aircraft Ever Flown, Now a Hypersonic Mothership
Share this story On the morning of 13 April 2019, the widest aircraft ever built rolled down the runway at Mojave in California, lifted two fuselages and six engines off the ground, and flew for two and a half hours. Its wings stretched 385 feet from tip to tip, wider...
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