Archive for March, 2008
Guns in the Cockpit: Bad Guys Shot – 0, Holes in Airplane – 1
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008The issue of guns in the cockpit is somewhat of a controversial topic. Born after the 9/11 attacks, there is a program which allows pilots to go through training in order to be allowed to carry a loaded weapon with them in the cockpit. The reasoning behind this program is that pilots are the last [...]
Gulfstream Announces World’s Fastest Civil Jet – G650
Thursday, March 13th, 2008Step aside, Cessna Citation X. Gulfstream seems to have trumped you in the speed department. Announced today, the new Gulfstream 650 will be able to produce a maximum range of 7,000 miles at Mach .85 or 5,000 miles at Mach .90, and won’t hit the barber pole (max speed limit) until Mach [...]
Hard Landing – 1 out of 3 landing gear remaining isn’t bad.
Thursday, March 13th, 2008Every pilot has a bad landing. There were times I thought I’d sent the landing gear through the wing, but I must say I never did. Here’s some pictures of a couple of pilots who actually did. Actually, it’s not fair to say for sure this was a hard landing because, oddly [...]
Southwest Grounds 8% of its Fleet
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008The AP is reporting that Southwest has grounded 44 737-300’s as a result of failed crack testing. One of the 44 has already been retired, and five are currently in maintenance, which leaves 38 aircraft that will have to be taken out of the active fleet. According to Southwest, the grounding of these [...]
Pilot Seniority 101 Part 1- The Sacred Cow
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008With all of this hubaloo surrounding the pilots and the Delta/Northwest merger, the issue of pilot seniority lists has become a sort of an enigma. According to Delta officials, the merger with Northwest will not be pursued until the pilots at both airlines have come to an agreement to merge seniority lists. [...]
Southwest Looking to Fly International?
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008The airplane geek community (of which I am a proud card-carrying member) is all a’ twitter about a new job posting located at Southwest.com. The position is for a Safety and Federal Aiport Security Department manager, International Security Operations.
I’ll be the first to express skepticism about the conclusions being drawn that this posting is [...]
Hamburg Wing-strike – Pilot a Hero or Lacking Technique?
Monday, March 3rd, 2008By now, I’m sure if you’re at all connected to aviation (or the nightly news for that matter) you’ve seen the video of the Lufthansa A320 landing in a crosswind in Hamburg, Germany. The media, once again, seems to be less knowledgeable about aviation than they are about selling advertising because you read headlines [...]