Content tagged with “air-travel”

“ There were some strange airlines in the past, that catered to very specific passenger demographics. ”

“ A damaged plane jettisoned a nuclear bomb off the coast of Georgia in 1958. It has never been found. It has been confirmed to contain enriched uranium, but may or may not be capable of detonating. ”

“This is simply a place where aircraft take off and land. Most often, we call these ‘airports,’ but aerodrome is more inclusive. A small dirt landing strip in the jungle could be an aerodrome. A patch of ocean where seaplanes launch could be an aerodrome. From Wikipedia : The term airport may imply…”

“ Lots of air cargo is carried in the holds of passenger flights, so it’s a problem when passengers stop flying. Here’s an analysis of how the industry has adapted. ”

“ Solid thriller about the apparent cover-up of an inflight incident on trans-pacific flight. Lots of a super geeky airline industry information. If you like jets, this is your book. Fast-paced, page turner. I legitimately couldn’t put it down. ”

“ In 1983, an inexperienced pilot in British Harrier couldn’t locate the aircraft carrier he was supposed to land on, and had to set down on a Spanish cargo ship before he ran out of fuel. ”

“About 50 pages into this, I was bored, and it seemed very similar to another book I had read. Sure enough, turns out Annie Jacobson wrote The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top-Secret Military Research Agency . I’m just not a fan of her writing, I guess. The truth is…”

“Yes…ish. Some of them can under some circumstances. ‘Autoland’ is a feature on some larger airlines. But it has limits: It has to be enabled and initiated. It doesn’t just do it automatically. The airport has to be equipped for it. The plane doesn’t really ‘land itself’ – the plane and the airport…”

“ In 1977, a German tourist accidentally de-planed in Bangor, Maine, and spent three days thinking he was in San Francisco. When the truth was discovered, he become a brief sensation. ”

“Defining what actually constitutes an individual ‘plane’ can be hard. In each case, there is a basic airframe (ex: 737), but there are sometimes dozens of variants of it (100 through 900, as well as MAX versions 7 though 10). Some common changes: Lengthening the body (you can’t increase it in any…”

“ A plane attempting to land on an aircraft carrier snaps the arresting cable, thus demonstrating why pilots momentarily go to full power at the instant they catch the cable. ”

“ A long analysis of the disappearance of Malaysia Air Flight 370 provides evidence that pilot suicide is the most likely scenario. ”

“It has to do with the transition from two-letter to three-letter codes. Originally, airport codes were just two-letters. In Canada, they decided to use the same code as the Morse code for the corresponding Canadian railway station. Eventually, it became important to know if an airport had a weather…”

“ Somewhat interesting, but scattered. The author bounces around a lot. ”

“ This short video of a landing at Gibraltar International Airport shows the only way a tiny, narrow country can fit an airport runway – by bisecting an active city street, at which cars have to wait for the landing plane to cross (at 0:43 in the video). ”

“This is a purchase made at a shop in the international terminal of most airports which is free from taxes. Since some goods – like alcohol and cigarettes – are highly taxed, this can result in a steep discount on these items. There are three separate concepts at work: If you have checked in and…”

“ At a testing center in Upstate New York, the US Air Force has mounted a bunch of planes upside down to test their antennae and communications systems. ”

“ The Ghana aviation authority got upset at the continued mechanical issues of a single airliner and banned it from being flown into their country. ”

“In geometry, a ‘great circle’ is a flat plane that cuts through the middle of a sphere. Essentially, it becomes the longer line that was drawn around that sphere. In aviation navigation, a ‘great circle route’ is the shortest path between two points, and is achieved by finding the great circle that…”

“ Spoiler: no passenger has ever landed a large commercial airliner like in the movies, but it’s happened several times with smaller planes. ”

“ A factual explanation of why helicopters crash more often than planes. ”

“ Airlines make little money on ticket sales. Most of their profits come from selling miles/points to marketing partners like credit cards, hotels, and car rental agencies. ”

“ It turns out that one of the most practical ways to transport a jet engine is to simply bolt it under the wing of another plane. ”

“ A detailed look at the planes, helicopters, and ground vehicles used to transport the president, and how they themselves are transported. ”

“ A fascinating conference presentation where a guy (sometime hilariously) explains the insane process of how to land a Space Shuttle. ”

“ All the details behind how the most famous flying gun in the world works. Hint: it’s as simple as possible, and designed to do one thing really well. ”

“ A comprehensive tour of a full-size Boeing 767 turned into a private jet. ”

“ A simple picture of Air Force One resulted in a long, forensic discussion about whether the plane was taking off or landing at the time. ”

“ There is a specific height at which an aviator is considered an astronaut, at which point different laws apply. ”

“This is a value commonly used to describe the speed of an aircraft. It’s not a constant value. It represents the speed of sound in whatever air is being used at the time. The speed of sound changes with elevation and air density. Also, ‘speed of sound’ is kind of a misnomer. What’s really being…”

“ Microsoft’s Flight Simulator 2020 is so detailed that it’s hard to pick it out from real life. Here’s a side-by-side comparison. ”

“ The size difference demonstrated between a Soviet-era Mil Mi-26 heavy transport helicopter and a more common passenger helicopter. ”

“ Fascinating look at the logistics of flying NFL teams everywhere, and how this might play out if the league completes a rumored expansion to London. ”

“This was apparently a revolutionary book, back when it was published. It pushed back on the idea that industrial accidents were usually the fault of human error. It advaned the idea that in the world of connected systems, humans simply be expected to understand the ultimate ramifications of…”

“ A fictional airline has been used in dozens of TV shows and movies, often in situations where something bad happens to one of its planes. ”

“Chicago’s largest airport is named for Edward ‘Butch’ O’Hare. He was a Naval aviator during World War II. He’s most known for single-handing attacking nine bombers who were threatening his aircraft carrier. He shot down five of them. O’Hare was awarded the Medal of Honor. He was shot down by the…”

“I was fascinated by this article that explains one reason the global air travel system is so safe. Many countries have been able to steadily improve safety because they don’t try to hold anyone at fault for incidents anymore. Put another way: we’ve decided that when so many lives are at stake, it’s…”

“ There’s an airline that is forced to fly a single route by a decades-old treaty. It tries very hard to hide its own existence. ”

“O’Hare is built on what used to be an airfield complex called ‘Orchard Field.’ It served a Douglas manufacturing plant and an Air Force service depot. That’s where the ‘ORD’ comes from: ‘Orchard.’ When the city of Chicago needed more capacity than the original airport (now Midway), they purchased…”

“ An attempt to find evidence of something which seems inexplicably fabricated. ”

“ In 2004, two pilots tried to push an empty airliner to its performance limits. It did not end well. ”

“This is short for ‘tarmacadam,’ which differs slightly from macadam . Wikipedia defines it as: Tarmacadam is a road surfacing material made by combining crushed stone, sand, and tar […] It is a more durable and dust-free enhancement of simple compacted stone macadam surfaces… Vocabulary.com says:…”

“ In 1986, the Air Force flew a human heart a long distance, very, very fast, so it would survive until it got implanted. ”

“ The U-2 spy plane is so difficult to land that they need fast chase cars to follow it down the runway to tell the pilot how things look. This is a video from one of those cars. ”

“ For over 12 years, one guy has been working on the same paper model of a Boeing 777. ”

“ Some fighter jets have a false cockpit painted on the bottom of the fuselage to make it harder to figure out its orientation and direction. ”

“ The world’s shortest scheduled commercial flight lasts 1 minute, 20 seconds and flies at 350 feet. ”

“ The process of ejecting from a fighter plane is far more intricate than you would think. More violent, too. ”

“ A deeply uncomfortable truth is that many commercial aircraft are poorly maintained and pilots depend so much on automation that they simply don’t know what to do when something unexpected happens. ”

“ The headline question doesn’t really get answered, but this does shed some new light on what happened, and what state the recovery efforts are in. ”

“ Turns out that the environment inside a plane in flight makes us subconsciously crave certain foods and drinks. ”

“ Noise and space requirements make it very hard to build new airports, but we still manage to increase passenger capacity through bigger planes, faster turnarounds, and better air traffic control. ”

“ There was once an attempt to make a commercially viable autogyro. ”

“ Due to a change in investigative policy, it’s become much easier to determine the root cause of air incidents. The key was to not try and blame anyone. ”

“ An unexpected tailwind got a 747 across the Atlantic a full 80 minutes ahead of schedule, breaking the five-hour mark. ”

“ A full-length documentary about the establishment of an airport and commercial air service on the remote island of St. Helena. ”