Airplanes

We don’t tend to think much about airplane windows, and when we do, it’s often for the wrong reason. If you aren’t a pilot or airline industry insider, you can hear all sorts of horror stories about windows cracking, but surely they’re stronger than that, right? Well, thankfully, yes – airplane windows aren’t made from […]

Many aircraft have been considered to be the worst aircraft ever. Most of these have stopped flying for good reason, but some are still flying high. So which are the worst aircraft still in service? Read on… People tend to believe that it’s the airline that operates the aircraft as much as the aircraft itself. […]

Aviation is full of jargon and technical terms. In some cases, acronyms and “alphabet soup” make even the most straightforward concepts cloudy with confusion. Other times, everyday words are used in new and unexpected ways.  In aviation, “retard” is a command to reduce the throttle position. It is used throughout the industry but is especially […]

It has been a little over 130 years since the Wright Brothers first flew, and a little over 50 years since Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. Both the Wild Blue Yonder and the Final Frontier have long excited the imagination, but why aren’t they one and the same? Why can’t planes fly into […]

It’s all too easy to take the pace of air travel today for granted. Trips that took days or weeks to complete in the era of steamships and steam engines can be completed in mere hours in the age of commercial jetliners. Yet planes aren’t seem to be getting any faster. Why don’t planes fly […]

We think of airplanes today as being able to take us anywhere. We expect planes to be able to take everywhere from Boston to Berlin to Baghdad to Beijing and beyond, but there are limits to this. Extremely hot weather can leave flights grounded.  So why can’t planes fly in extreme heat? Reduced air density, […]

Flying in icy conditions can be dangerous under the best circumstances. If possible, storms and cold conditions are best avoided. However, that simply isn’t realistic for pilots in cold weather climates. As such, pilots need to make sure that their planes are as ice-free as possible, which means de-icing them.  Why Are Planes Deiced? For […]

Believe it or not, but planes get hit by lightning at a rate that is more frequent than you might expect.  With between 8,000 and 20,000 planes in the air at any given moment, what are the odds of your plane being hit by lightning?  More importantly, does it pose a threat to the safety […]

From Sopwith Camels to Spitfires to today’s supersonic jets, from dogfights over Flanders to the Battle of Britain and beyond, the Royal Air Force (RAF) has time and again come flying to the rescue in Britain’s time of need.  One of the oldest and most storied air forces in the world, the history of the […]

The 20th century saw the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, and with it the rise, fall, and rebirth of Russian aviation. Soviet/Russian jets have long been a fixture military aviation, and look set to remain so. Let’s have a look at some of the best Russian fighter jets produced by the former Soviet […]