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Trans-Pacific Flight into Japan as Major Earthquake Unravels
The following is an account by a presumed DELTA pilot landing soon after a catastrophic earthquake hit in Japan, a month ago today. There is no way to verify the veracity of this account other than by relying on the author’s plain good will, as the flight crew exercised top airmanship in a tight ‘need-to-land’ situation. The context? Having…
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Bush Pilots: where the real flying was and is
What is real flying? Tricky question. A good one, though, one that, for the sake of animated discussion, has to do with the essence of flying and deserves a crack at a straight-forward and meaningful answer, especially in the present era of glass cockpits and fly-by-wire control systems for airliners. The question came up in the context of a series of videos by National…
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New pictures found of pilot and novelist Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Mystery about acclaimed pilot and novelist, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s death deepens after WW2 memorabilia collector’s son hands over photos, unseen so far, of Saint-Exupéry taken before his last flying mission. Nearly anytime people believe that all has been said and told about a deceased celebrity, something new turns up about that person, with the potential of yielding more meaningful details about the person’s life. The…
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Crash and Retirement of the Concorde Supersonic Airliner: What Next?
What more can be said by way of generality about Concorde that has not yet been said? Not much, I suppose, especially since criminal hearings are currently underway in Pontoise not far from the crash site. More detailed facts, incriminating or not, about the actual cause and chain of events leading up to the fateful crash are yet…
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Giving Young Flyers a Chance
Do you remember this food commercial that ran years ago on major TV channels in North America? The food producer (I forget their name for now) wanted to promote their particular brand by asking a youngster to express his opinion about that food brand. The youngster simply held out his plate towards the camera and…