Share this story Quick FactsIssueCritical shortage of Designated Pilot Examiners (DPEs) across the USWhat Is a DPE?FAA-authorized examiners who conduct checkrides for pilot certificatesWait TimesWeeks to months in many regions; some students travel hundreds of...
Share this story Quick FactsCompanyEmbraer S.A. (São José dos Campos, Brazil)Delivery Surge47% increase in aircraft deliveries, early 2026 vs. early 2025Key ProductsE190-E2, E195-E2 (commercial); Praetor 500/600 (business jets); C-390 Millennium (military)Market...
Share this story Quick FactsAnniversaryLufthansa turns 100 on April 6, 2026Original FlightsApril 6, 1926: Berlin-Tempelhof → Zurich (Fokker Grulich F II) and Berlin → Cologne (Dornier Komet III)2026 RecreationBoeing 787-9 (Berlin–Zurich) and Airbus A350-900...
Share this story In the year 875 AD, a 70-year-old man climbed to the top of a mountain near Córdoba, strapped a pair of wings to his body, and jumped. He was not a madman. He was one of the most brilliant minds in the world. Abbas ibn Firnas was an Andalusian...
Share this story The world’s two busiest Middle East hubs seized up in early March 2026. Dubai International, the planet’s top airport for international passengers, went from processing 200,000 travelers a day to canceling flights by the thousands. Hamad International...
Share this story They aimed to launch a man out of an aircraft at 600 miles per hour and have him survive the journey. It was 1945, and James Martin, a British engineer, had set out to solve a problem that had killed countless pilots: when your fighter is hit and...
Share this story There’s a reason the most lethal fighter jets on Earth look like they were built in pairs. The twin vertical stabilizer isn’t decorative—it’s an engineering solution to a physics problem that becomes impossible to ignore once you’re pulling 9 Gs and...
Share this story A blinding flash. A sound like the earth splitting open. Your coffee cup rattles. The cabin lights flicker. Then everything goes back to normal. Most passengers sleep through it. Statistically, commercial aircraft get struck by lightning roughly once...
Share this story It shouldn’t be survivable. Two massive turbofan engines—the only things keeping a 600,000-pound aircraft aloft—both quit simultaneously at 40,000 feet. No thrust. No electrical power. Dead silent cockpit except for the wind screaming past the...
Share this story You’re on a three-mile final. The runway lights are visible — two neat rows of white dots floating in a sea of black. Everything looks normal. You hold the descent. Then, 200 feet above the ground, something feels off. The VASI lights are...
Share this story Your engine just quit. The propeller windmills to a stop. The cockpit gets eerily quiet except for the wind and the stall warning horn you’re about to hear if you don’t do something right now. Every student pilot knows the first move:...
Share this story A Cessna 152 trainer — the type of aircraft most commonly found in the traffic pattern at uncontrolled airports. (Wikimedia Commons) Two aircraft, same altitude, converging at a combined closing speed that left neither pilot with time to react. One...
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