FAA IT Systems: Snafu

In the dog-bites-man department, the computer system the Federal Aviation Administration relies on to track flight plans is tottering:
Stratfor, along with many other industry watchers, is very concerned about the flight-plan system and evidence that the system is wearing out.
“Regardless of what caused the Aug. 26 [National Airspace Data Interchange Network] crash, [there] is a monumental challenge the [...]

Hold On To Your Lunch

Opinions varied, especially among the passengers, but the approach to Hong Kong’s old Kai Tak airport had to be the coolest anywhere because it featured a low-altitude turn to final that occurred just above the homes and businesses of Kowloon. I was lucky enough to take that ride once, in a UAL 747, and it [...]

Happy Landings

It’s become somewhat fashionable for college football teams to commission parachute jumpers to drop on their stadium and deliver the game ball. Unfortunately, some of the jumpers have all the smarts of people who’ve landed on their heads a few times.
I was witness to one of two incidents over the weekend that stemmed from this [...]

Texting a Flight Down

An air-traffic controller used a cell phone’s text-messaging features last week to talk an airplane down. Not in the movie sense of having to teach someone to fly in 30 minutes or less, but as a backup to talk to a real pilot who had no other way to communicate after his plane’s electrical system [...]