The Downwind Turn Revisited
In 2018, a Junkers Ju 52 crashed in the Swiss Alps while attempting to cross a 10,000-foot saddle from south to north amid gusting winds.
In 2018, a Junkers Ju 52 crashed in the Swiss Alps while attempting to cross a 10,000-foot saddle from south to north amid gusting winds.
Anyone who has flown in to Catalina Airport (AVX), also named “Airport in the Sky” as it is situated atop a 1,602-foot mountain on Catalina Island about 20 miles off the beach-clad shores of southern California, knows the airport has long been in pretty bad shape. Potholes and pebbles make the runway best suited for […]
The pilot-rated passenger later stated he verified that the flaps were down and the three green landing gear lights were illuminated in the cockpit during the approach. Just before landing, he heard the angle of attack indicator alarm. The airplane landed hard, and he heard a loud pop and felt the left main landing gear fracture. The airplane then slid off the left side of the runway, colliding with PAPI lights, and continued sliding until the right wing dug into the ground. The airplane then flipped over and caught fire. The cockpit canopy was jammed, but several observers helped open it and egress the two occupants.
A multimillion-dollar renovation, funded by American Airlines, Boeing and PacMin, has been completed at the American Airlines CR Smith Museum in the northeastern corner of Fort Worth, Texas, providing a hands-on experience of the operations of the iconic airline. “We wanted to refocus the experience to give visitors a greater insight into the operations of […]
A group of four C-47s and DC-3s are flying as part of the airshow at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, this week in preparation for the big Daks Over Normandy reenactment of D-Day that will take place on June 2 through 6 of next year. The restoration of the airplane that led the massive group […]
Laura Mayo is a lover of all things that fly, especially airplanes. “I have devoted most of my education and field experience to birds, and now I get to fly with them,” she says. Mayo earned a bachelor’s degree in fisheries and wildlife sciences from Oregon State University in 2017, and has worked and volunteered […]
An acquaintance named Mark Burton recently sent me a copy of his book about an airport owned and operated by his family called Brownie’s. A few days later, I met a guy at a party who regaled me (unsolicited) with wild and woolly tales about flying out of a now defunct airport called Brownie’s with […]
The 20-mile clearance policy is a safe number and probably easy to stipulate, but scale and definitions make it challenging. For every fully visible and developed severe thunderstorm, there are even more smaller cells or building storms that may or may not grow to thunderstorm level. Sometimes a curtain of rain is just a curtain of rain. Other times, it can be hiding something much bigger due to the lurking cumulonimbus that has built up above the overcast.
“Hey, can you hand me a ballpoint pen?” “You’ll like this one,” says Cathy, my wife. Sure enough, she’s right. The pen says “Kaiser Air,” complete with phone number and Arinc frequency. I just love these pens, worth little in terms of construction cost, but worth a lot to me. This one is white with […]
How cool is this: an invitation to the 15th annual Living Legends of Aviation Awards ceremony in Beverly Hills, California, from a friend — himself a living legend — whose lovely wife finds all things airplane a crashing bore (whoops, wrong adjective). Then an offer to bunk with friends in Santa Monica (instead of $300-plus […]