Flight Safety

After a half-century of experience in the cargo flying sector, long-time pilot Stan DeLong has seen it all. He claims to be semi-retired, but he still flies a Piper Navajo Chieftain during United Parcel Service’s peak season, and is chief pilot and check airman for Gem Air, LLC. If you make the mistake of assuming […]

Chief among the many comments and reactions to the suicide by Rich Russell in a Horizon Airlines Q400 on Friday was the wonder about how a ramp attendant could take off and do aerobatics in a regional airliner. Well, Russell may have provided the answer himself. He told air traffic controllers he played video games […]

President Donald Trump’s continued promotion of his personal pilot John Dunkin as the next FAA administrator is apparently the underlying cause of the lengthy delay in nominating a new administrator. And according to Politico and The Daily Beast it’s frustrating congressional members on both sides on the aisle because a mutually acceptable candidate is already […]

For the second time in less than a month, a vintage airliner carrying passengers has crashed but this time there were no fatalities. The 1944 de Havilland Dragon Rapide biplane took off from Abbotsford International Airport in British Columbia about 5:30 p.m. on Saturday just after the close of the annual airshow for the day. […]

Now that it has sunk below the fold—or will have by the time you read this—the most surprising thing about Friday’s bizarre stolen Q400 incident is that it wasn’t streamed live on Facebook. Now that I’ve typed that, I realize someone will send a link saying, oh, but it was. I’ve been scanning the domestic […]

A Horizon Air Q400 crashed on Ketron Island near Seattle-Tacoma Airport in Washington State after 29-year-old ramp worker Rich Russell was able to take it off from the busy international airport. The motive was suicide and it was not a terrorist act. Russell used a tug to turn around the aircraft, which was waiting for […]

I was flying near Salinas, California, when the Goodyear blimp was passing over the airport. Tower advised an inbound aircraft of the blimp in the area. Tower: “Beech 1234 be advised there’s a blimp at your two o’clock, three thousand feet.” Beech 1234: “Is that from the top or from the bottom? Doug Anderson Salinas, […]

Propping? What Could Possibly Go Wrong? I certainly enjoyed Paul’s description of the propping episode he experienced. He writes well and I’d like to see more. I’m not sure he has a clear understanding of what and why the impulse coupler does what it does, however. It is surprising that he hasn’t had many such […]

The FAA said that it is working to finalize an Advisory Circular (AC) related to the use of connectivity technologies in a letter to the Aeronautical Repair Station Association (ARSA) on Tuesday. The AC is designed to provide guidance on using technologies such as video and live streaming for remote witnessing, allowing certain oversight activities, […]

Engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed a new control algorithm that they say will allow a drone to autonomously herd flocks of birds away from an airport. According to the university, the project was inspired by the encounter with a flock of geese that resulted in US Airways Flight 1549 being […]