Aviation Blog - Page 55

At some point before every flight, a fuel truck pulls up to the aircraft, connects a hose to the wing, and pumps in tens of thousands of pounds of jet fuel. The process takes anywhere from fifteen minutes to over an hour. Passengers barely notice. But the quantity of fuel going into that aircraft is

Your 6am flight boards at 5:40. The aircraft has been sitting at the gate since just after 11pm, when the inbound crew shut down the engines and handed over the paperwork. Seven hours have passed. In that time, the cabin lights have been off, the jet bridge has been retracted, and the ramp outside has

You are at the gate when the ground agent makes an announcement: there is a “minor maintenance item” being addressed, and departure will be slightly delayed. Twenty minutes later you board, and a small printed notice in the seat pocket mentions that the in-seat entertainment screen in your row is inoperative. The aircraft takes off

Somewhere between the moment you book a ticket and the moment your aircraft pushes back from the gate, someone you will never meet has already spent the better part of an hour working on your specific flight. They have pulled the weather forecasts for your departure and arrival airports, selected an optimal route through the

Elon Musk’s private jet fleet is four Gulfstreams: the G650ER N628TS, a new G800 and G700, and a G550. Full tail numbers, specs and 2026 updates.

Most celebrities who own private jets have never touched the controls. John Travolta has type ratings for the Boeing 707, the Boeing 737, and the Boeing 747. He started flying at age 15. He navigated a Gulfstream through a total electrical failure over Washington DC using only a compass and a flashlight. And he lives

Sit down in the left seat of a small training aircraft and the first thing that hits you is the panel. Dozens of round dials, needle-and-scale gauges, digital readouts, switches, and knobs fill the space in front of you. From the outside, it looks like controlled chaos. From the pilot’s seat, it is something else

Look at the instrument panel of any small training aircraft and your eye will eventually settle on a cluster of six round gauges arranged near the centre. They are not random. They are not decorative. Each one answers a specific question that a pilot in flight needs answered continuously: how fast, how high, which way,

Imagine flying at four thousand feet through a solid layer of cloud. There is nothing outside the windows but grey: no ground, no sky, no horizon line to anchor your sense of up and down. Within about twenty seconds of losing your visual reference, your inner ear begins to lie. A gradual bank feels exactly

The descent has to be timed precisely. Too steep and the aircraft arrives over the runway too fast, the approach angle too aggressive to land safely. Too shallow and the pilot floats above the correct glidepath, consuming runway they cannot afford to waste. Somewhere between those two outcomes is the correct rate of descent, and