July 2009 - Jim Fallows' Aviation blogs
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For previous cheerier news, see here , here , and here . The most absorbing drama in the small-plane world these past few months has been the separation between Alan Klapmeier, who with his brother Dale founded the now highly-successful Cirrus aircraft...
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I mentioned earlier the beautiful old airplanes from the glamor days of air travel on display at the Experimental Aircraft Association's annual " Airventure " show in Oshkosh. That was yesterday; what about tomorrow? Without getting into...
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When American automakers' brand names were glamorous: Ford Tri-Motor , ca 1925: When American airlines (and American Airlines) were glamorous: AA's " Flagship Detroit " DC-3, ca 1937: The Tri-Motor actually flew today, at the annual...
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I mentioned recently a small-plane caravan flight along the route (more or less) of Lewis & Clark's trip to the Pacific. The same company, AirJourney.com , is sponsoring a more ambitious trip later this year. Now, I'm not actually going to...
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Yesterday I mentioned one informed hypothesis about the accident-chain that brought Air France 447 down into the Atlantic Ocean: pitot-tube trouble, leading to autopilot trouble, leading to manual control of the airplane, leading (perhaps) to overstressing...
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This recent post and preceding items mention the still-ambiguous mix of data concerning the crash of Air France 447 into the Atlantic six weeks ago. The plane's presence in a tropical thunderstorm was almost certainly the trigger for the problems...
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Yesterday I mentioned that (unsurprisingly) there was not yet any definitive word on the cause of the Air France flight 447 crash over the Atlantic off Brazil. It turns out that there has been this recent interim report from the French BEA, Bureau d'Enquetes...
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Unless I've missed it in my time away from the internets, no one yet knows exactly what happened to Air France flight 447 over the Atlantic Ocean six weeks ago. But whatever went wrong, the problems were almost certainly related to the plane's...
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A company called Airjourney , "The Flying Adventure Journey Specialist," is sponsoring a joint small-plane fly-in next month along the route of the Lewis & Clark expedition. Perhaps it is a stretch to claim, as Airjourney does in promos...