When a Helicopter Picks Up an Airliner: The Mi-26 Sling-Lift That Defies Belief
The photograph looks fake. A short-fuselage Soviet-era twin-engine airliner — a Tupolev Tu-134, the workhorse of Aeroflot domestic routes for thirty years — is hanging in midair beneath a single helicopter. The Tu-134 weighs about 28 tonnes empty. It is some...
Riyadh Air Will Fly Its First Passenger on 1 July — Saudi Arabia’s Boldest Bet
For three years, the world’s aviation press has watched Riyadh Air with the kind of attention usually reserved for a celebrity divorce. The airline has spent more on launch advertising than most mid-size carriers spend on a fleet. It has cut deals with Boeing and...
The Busiest Airport on Earth Wants to Fire the TSA
For decades, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International has been the busiest airport in the world. Over 100 million passengers a year. The single most important screening checkpoint in the United States. And throughout the recent government shutdown, more than a third...
30 Boeing 777-9s Are Rotting in Storage — and Airlines Are Refusing Them
The Boeing 777-9 was supposed to be the airliner that finally cemented Boeing’s widebody recovery after the 787 debacle and the 737 MAX disaster. It was going to be the world’s largest twin-engined jet, the most efficient on a per-seat basis, the only credible direct...
Why eVTOLs Need a Whole New Kind of Airport
The air taxi revolution has a problem, and it’s not the aircraft. Joby Aviation has flown from JFK to Manhattan in seven minutes. Archer Aviation has been named the official eVTOL provider for Belgrade’s Expo 2027. FAA type certification is in the final...
The Funniest Pilot Logbook Entries Ever Written
Every aircraft has a logbook. And every logbook tells a story—usually about hydraulic leaks, faulty warning lights, and the slow entropy of flying machines held together by rivets, regulations, and sheer maintenance crew willpower. But hidden among the technical...
Joby Flies JFK to Manhattan in 7 Minutes
In late April 2026, a white, six-rotor aircraft lifted off from John F. Kennedy International Airport, tilted its propellers forward, and landed at the East 34th Street Heliport in Midtown Manhattan seven minutes later. No jet fuel. No noise complaints. No two-hour...
$465 an Hour: The Big 3 Just Rewrote U.S. Airline Pilot Pay
For most of aviation history, the salary difference between a Delta captain and a United captain on the same kind of aircraft was a real number. Sometimes 5%. Sometimes 8%. Always enough to matter when a pilot was deciding which big airline to chase. In 2026, that...
British Airways Just Axed 19 Routes — Gatwick Bleeds, Heathrow Wins
Cape Town, Las Vegas, JFK, Aruba, Jeddah, Kuwait, Costa Rica’s San José — and eleven European short-hops including Cologne, Grenoble, Izmir, Riga and Kalamata. British Airways is dropping nineteen routes from its summer 2026 timetable. Seven long-haul, twelve...
Sun Country Brings Back Its Nineties Paint Job
Sun Country Airlines never expected to become an airline-industry case study. Founded in 1982 by laid-off Braniff pilots, it spent thirty years quietly running ski charters out of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Las Vegas package tours, and the occasional NCAA bowl-game ferry...
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