Insights, updates, and aviation stories.
Trump University. Trump’s Atlantic City Taj Mahal. Trump Steaks. The New Jersey Generals USFL team, and eventually the whole USFL. A lot of Trump enterprises have come and gone – yet the story of one Trump airline “trumps” them all. Yes, Donald Trump owned his own airline at one point, Trump Airlines or, more properly, […]
As a mother, you always want to make sure you do whatever’s best for your baby. But what can or should you do when forced to choose between your baby’s health and an airline flight? How soon is it before your baby can safely fly? This is a difficult question to answer given how unpredictable […]
Airports are complex and dynamic places. Just a slight wind shift can change the runway in use, and the traffic patterns planes must fly. Pilots are expected to enter these changing environs fully abreast of what is going on and where. How do they do it? What Is ATIS in Aviation? The answer is the […]
In March of 2020, Flybe ceased to fly or be. It was the latest casualty of a British economy that was undergoing massive changes pre-Brexit as well as a global health crisis and will only continue to do so now that Brexit has occurred. The most well-known among these casualties was Thomas Cook, the travel […]
Shows like Airplane Repo make the business look exciting. Who wouldn’t want to be able to confront the rich and famous before flying off into the sunset, their private plane in tow? Of course, actual airplane repo jobs are a little more difficult than that. For one thing, there’s a lot more to it than […]
At first glance, the altimeter in an airplane seems like a relatively simple instrument. And it does work in a simple way, but not like most people would think it would. Pilots need to understand their instruments inside and out to get the right information out of them, and that’s especially true with something as […]
Hey, who are you calling heavy? While all pilots like to treat their aircraft like the ladies they are, thankfully planes are much more accepting of bluntly descriptive language. What Does “Heavy” Mean? Aircraft are classified based on their maximum takeoff weights (MTOW). A “heavy” aircraft is one whose takeoff weight is more than 300,000 […]
One of the essential factors in aviation weather is flight visibility. Visibility is the only legal weather requirement that must be met when landing after an instrument approach. If the visibility isn’t at least the minimum published on the approach plate, the pilot can’t land. What Does RVR Stand For? RVR is one way of […]
No one really likes going to the bathroom on an airplane, and no one really wants to think about what happens when you unleash that tremendous suctioned flush. Where Does Airplane Waste Go? They store it onboard for the duration of the flight. Once landed, a special truck comes and sucks out the contents of […]
As President, as in life, the right choice is often hard and hardly apparent. The answer is often more complex than first imagined and, to quote Obi-Wan, “depends greatly on our own point of view.” For example, what’s the answer to this Presidential quandary – who was the first President to fly? The answer: Roosevelt. […]