1958 was a big year for travel, starting on January 1st a BOAC Bristol Britannia broke the New York to London speed record, flying the route in 7 hours 57 minutes, followed by the first ever two-way moving sidewalk being introduced at Dallas’s Love Field and of course Boeing delivering the first ever 707 to…
Yesterday at 7:08am PST, a Boeing a 747-8KZF/SCD (RC523), flying as Flight BOE 523, lifted off from Runway 16R/34L at Paine Field, in Everett, Washington, for a 17-hour function and reliability test flight. After flying 8,119 miles over the continental United States, Flight BOE523 touched back down at Paine Field at 12:08am PST having made…
Over the past few weeks there seems to be an unusual frequency of stories regarding airline passengers attempting to open a commercial airliner’s door in flight. The thought of a door opening in flight is scary, and with good reason … people fear being sucked out of a plane and the rapid decompression causing plane…
Zimbabwe, a once financially stable nation, has faced increasing financial hardships over the past decade. The southern African nation’s financial situation has largely been caused by the politics and corruption of President Robert Mugabe government and the resulting sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the United States and the European Union as a result of President…
Sometimes questions come up time and time again because even among the biggest airplane geeks, and experienced aviation journalists, not everyone knows all the variants of all the aircraft flying around in the skies above our heads. As an airplane geek myself, it is widely known that I have a penchant for ‘three-holers,’ ie: planes…
There are all sorts of impressive statistics for commercial airliners, cost per available seat mile, cost per block hour, how many hours of flight per incident, how many operators fly a specific aircraft, types of variants of aircraft … but sometimes its difficult to put all these numbers into perspective. First the basics, the Boeing…
A few days ago while reading a media release from the Syrian Civil Aviation Authority I found myself stumped, wondering if the opening lines were a typo. But upon further reflection, the media release started to make sense. Last week in Damascus, Syria, the Iranian Government hosted the Iran Hi-Tech Expo … this event in-and-of…
In the world of politics, the occasional delusion official is not out of the ordinary … however among delusional politicians in the wrong job, Hamid Behbahani, Iran’s Transport Minister, probably ranks in the top 1% of those delusional officials. In the wake of a series of fatal plane crashes in Iran and a state airline…
Syrian Air is seeking to expand its fleet … but it has a problem … it can’t source effective aircraft for its fleet. Since the United States imposed sanctions on Syria in 2004, and transactions with the Commercial Bank of Syria, Syrian Air has been unable to have access to new modern ‘western’ aircraft.’ Syrian…
This past April Aeroflot, the Russian national flag carrier, announced it was considering launching a low cost carrier (LCC), as it takes over six smaller state-owned airlines in Russia. Aeroflot’s low cost carrier announcement was lost among the stories related to Aeroflot taking over multiple smaller Russian airlines and the Russian government meddling in the…
