“Those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,” said Benjamin Franklin in an oft-quoted comment. But the matter of access versus security is tightrope men have walked throughout history. Once upon a time going to the airport to catch a flight involved as much security [...]
I wrote about the Sikorsky X2 back in September and thought I’d pass along this link to a series of pictures of the X2. There’s some updates in there about their push to get a contract to bring it into production and the pictures are just pretty cool.
Delta Connection flight 4951 made an emergency landing at New York’s JFK on Saturday night, skidding to a stop as a landing gear malfunction caused 1 wing to drag the ground on landing: The first sign of trouble for passengers aboard Delta Flight 4951, being operated by Atlantic Southeast, from Atlanta to White Plains came [...]
Earlier this year I was in downtown DC for a variety of customer meetings and I happened to pass near the Washington Convention Center. There was a military trade show going on and helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky had set up a static display tent on the lawn of the block right in front of the Center, [...]
A little over a year ago the CEO of RyanAir made a bit of a splash when he suggested that he’d like to create a “standing-room only” section of his planes in an effort to maximize his load factor. Now, it seems, there’s an Italian design company that’s proposing something to get that closer to [...]
I first heard about the incident with the JetBlue flight attendant up in JFK on Monday when it happened. For those of you who missed it, flight attendant Steven Slater, fed up from his interaction with an irate passenger, announced his dissatisfaction over the cabin intercom, grabbed a beer from the galley, and then blew [...]
Not good: Former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was on board a plane that crashed Monday night in a remote location about 325 miles southwest of Anchorage, sources told Fox News. … Stevens’ condition was not known. The National Transportation Safety Board, which was sending a team to the crash site, said nine people were aboard [...]
I’ve been on some flights that were bumpy enough to worry me, and that’s coming from a former airline employee. Thankfully, I’ve never been through anything like this: A United Airlines jetliner hit severe turbulence while flying over Kansas, injuring 30 and jolting one woman out of her seat so forcefully that she left a [...]
America’s top-of-the-line air superiority fighter aircraft is about to have some company in the “5th Generation Fighter” category. Yesterday, Russia’s PM Vladmir Putin announced the introduction of their latest design, the Sukhoi T-50. She’s a pretty ship, that’s for sure. Knowing the success of Sukhoi’s other designs I have no doubt she’s a capable bird, [...]
Boeing’s X-51a Waverider test aircraft flew its 1st test flight yesterday morning, May 25, off the coast of California. The Waverider is an engine-test platform housing a scramjet, a type of engine that produces massive thrust. On this flight, the Waverider hit a top speed of Mach 6 and flew on its own for 200 [...]
