The Strangest Medical Disqualifiers for Pilot Licenses: From Color Blindness to Snoring
Most people assume that becoming a pilot requires good eyesight and a steady hand. That much is true. What most people don’t realize is just how deep the medical rabbit hole goes — and how some of the conditions that can ground you are genuinely surprising. From...
Pilot Pranks That Crossed the FAA Line: From Bar Bets to Revoked Licenses
Pilots are, by nature, people who enjoy pushing limits. Most channel that instinct into precision flying, tough weather calls, and the occasional perfectly greased landing. Others channel it into decisions that make FAA enforcement attorneys reach for their thickest...
The Tu-144 at Le Bourget: When the Soviet Concorde Broke Apart Over Paris
On June 3, 1973, roughly 250,000 spectators gathered at Le Bourget Airport for the Paris Air Show watched the most dramatic aviation disaster in air show history unfold in real time. A Tupolev Tu-144 — the Soviet Union’s answer to the Concorde — disintegrated in...
The Funniest Aircraft Names in History: From Goblins to Thunderscreeches
Every aircraft gets an official designation. Some get a dignified name to match. And then there are the ones that ended up with names so bizarre, so unfortunate, or so accidentally perfect that they’ve become legends in their own right — not for what they did in...
Eve Clears Hover, Eyes Transition: Embraer’s eVTOL Enters the Hard Part
Eve Air Mobility has cleared its most critical test milestone yet. The Embraer-backed eVTOL developer announced that its full-scale engineering prototype has completed the entire hover and low-speed flight test phase, delivering the high-fidelity aerodynamic and...
$12 Billion Burned, Zero Passengers Carried: The eVTOL Cash Bonfire
Twelve billion dollars. Gone. The top ten eVTOL companies have collectively burned through $12 billion in investor capital — four times what was lost during the very light jet craze of the late 1990s, and six times Boeing’s entire annual profit. Not one of them...
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 sixty feet...
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 that doesn’t exist yet has spent more on launch advertising than most mid-size carriers spend on a fleet. It has cut...
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...
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