Share this story Almost nobody ever saw an SR-71 at work. On operational missions the Blackbird cruised at more than three times the speed of sound and above 80,000 feet, far beyond the view of anyone on the ground. Which is why footage of it making low passes at air...
Share this story A Boeing 747-8 leaves the gate with up to 63,034 US gallons of kerosene on board. That is 238,609 litres, or 191,603 kilograms. Boeing puts the same aeroplane’s operating empty weight at 220,128 kilograms, so the fuel alone weighs almost as much...
Share this story At three seconds past 0847 on 8 January 2003, the captain of Air Midwest flight 5481 said two words into the cockpit voice recorder: “help me.” The Beech 1900D had just left runway 18R at Charlotte and the nose would not come down. Ten...
Share this story “Pitch oscillation” is one of those phrases that sounds mild right up until you read what the Federal Aviation Administration thinks it can turn into. On Monday the agency published a final rule ordering operators of almost two thousand...
Share this story Just before midnight on 7 July 2017, Air Canada Flight 759, an Airbus A320 inbound from Toronto, was cleared to land on runway 28R at San Francisco International Airport. The crew lined up instead with taxiway C, where four airliners sat waiting to...
Share this story The engine arrived in Ulster in the summer of 1910 without its petrol tank. Its owner was not willing to wait. She filled an empty whisky bottle with fuel, borrowed the only tubing in the house, which happened to be her deaf aunt’s ear trumpet,...
Share this story On the morning of 30 November 1934, a small blue-and-red Caudron racer came in to land at Guyancourt, just outside Versailles. It lost speed, dropped onto the treetops of the woods beyond the field and broke apart. The pilot, reached first by fellow...
Share this story On 22 October 1909, on the army parade ground at Châlons in eastern France, a woman climbed alone into a Voisin biplane. The machine had only one seat, so there was no room for an instructor. She taxied, opened the throttle, lifted off and flew about...
Share this story At 10:43 on 7 December 1936, a radio operator somewhere over the South Atlantic tapped out a short line of Morse from the flying boat Croix-du-Sud: “Coupons moteur arrière droit” – cutting the rear starboard engine. Then the...
Share this story On 24 November 1955 a high-winged prototype registered PH-NIV took to the air for the first time. It had two Rolls-Royce Dart turboprops, a pressurised cabin and an airframe in which much of the metal was glued together rather than riveted. According...
Share this story On 20 August 1963 a small, sharp-nosed jet in British United Airways colours lifted off from Hurn, near Bournemouth. It had two Rolls-Royce engines bolted to the back of the fuselage, a tailplane perched on top of the fin, and a head start that its...
Share this story Somewhere over Kansas, a white Cessna jet has been flying itself to the ground on purpose. Textron Aviation test pilots have been pressing the button that every owner hopes never to touch, and watching the airplane pick an airport, talk to air traffic...
Recent Comments