Share this story On 31 December 1966 the Federal Aviation Administration chose which American company would build the aeroplane that was going to make Concorde obsolete. Lockheed lost. The reasons given were, in effect, that its aircraft was too sensible. The L-2000...
Share this story On his first day with No. 92 Squadron in May 1940, a twenty-year-old pilot officer borrowed somebody else’s Spitfire and rolled it on take-off. His name was Trevor Wade. Everybody called him Wimpy, after the hamburger-eating character in Popeye....
Share this story Every December, C-130Js from Yokota fly to Guam and spend a fortnight pushing bundles out of the back over the Federated States of Micronesia. Operation Christmas Drop has run for seventy-four years and reaches sixty islands. It is charming, and it is...
Share this story Somebody has flown every tanker the U.S. Air Force has ever operated. The new head of Air Mobility Command would like to know whether that needs to stay true. “I do not believe that it has to be a manned future air refueling solution,” Lt....
Share this story For years the argument about the world’s best-connected airport was really an argument between Heathrow, Schiphol and Frankfurt, with Dubai lurking. On 16 September that stopped being true. OAG published Megahubs 2026 and Istanbul is first. Not...
Share this story On 4 November 1977 the United Nations Security Council voted 15 to nothing to impose a mandatory arms embargo on South Africa. It was the first time the Council had ever imposed binding sanctions on a member state. Nine years later South Africa rolled...
Share this story On 16 December 1966 the United Nations Security Council imposed the first mandatory arms embargo in its history. The target was Rhodesia, which had declared independence from Britain thirteen months earlier and which no country on earth recognised....
Share this story On 5 December 1956 the United States Air Force launched a nuclear-capable cruise missile from Cape Canaveral, sent it towards Puerto Rico, and then lost it. Not lost as in crashed. Lost as in it kept flying, ignored every command including the...
Share this story Smoking has been banned on commercial flights for decades. The signs are lit from pushback to gate. Tampering with a lavatory smoke detector will get you arrested.And yet every airliner rolling off the line at Toulouse or Renton this year has an...
Share this story Every civil aircraft in the world carries a registration painted on its tail or fuselage, and the first character or two tells you where it is registered. American aircraft start with N. British with G. German with D. Swiss with HB.The obvious...
Share this story The Battle of Britain has a famous date, and it is 15 September. That is Battle of Britain Day, the climax, the one in the calendar.It is not the day that cost the most. That was Sunday 18 August 1940, when the Luftwaffe made an all-out attempt to...
Share this story Turkish Airlines does not have an aircraft problem. It has an engine problem, and it has spent the better part of a year using one to solve the other.A 150-aircraft Boeing 737 MAX order — announced with considerable ceremony after President...
Recent Comments