News from the World of Aviation

For you aviation fans, here are a couple of videos showing some daring (you might say "stupid") commercial airline pilots, along with a couple of other aviation news items.

First, here is an Air Portugal A310 doing a very, very low fly-by at an air show in Portugal. It's not the low altitude that is the problem here, it's that the pilot then banks the plane and almost touches his left wingtip on the ground. Touching the wingtip to the ground while flying is not good for airplanes.

Then, here is a high-speed fly-by of Paine Field in Everett by a brand-new 777-300, done by the Cathay Pacific pilot who was flying the plane back to Hong Kong. It says the plane was going 322 mph at 28 feet; I cannot confirm that, but you can see it's flying very fast and very low. The chairman of the airline was in the back of the plane. The pilot got fired.

Not all the Bud Hollands are flying B-52s, it seems. (Here is a ten-minute compendium of video of Bud Holland trying to kill himself in a B-52, and then finally doing it. It includes the infamous Yakima Firing Range ridgeline passes.)

Meanwhile, a GB Airways flight from Manchester, England to Cyprus had to divert to Turkey when the copilot died of natural causes. I would hate to have that happen to both pilots of a flight I was on.

Then, yesterday the pilot of a single-engine Piper was flying from Indianapolis to Pittsburgh at 7000 feet when his engine conked out. He managed to land safely on I-70 and roll to a stop on the shoulder. The Indiana State Police blocked off a couple of lanes of traffic while a mechanic fixed the problem, and then the State Police blocked off the whole Interstate long enough for the guy to take off again. Which he did.

Posted: Mon - February 25, 2008 at 09:30 AM

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News from the World of Aviation

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