Well, it depends on the plane but, yes – the majority of them can. If we look at twin-engined commercial aircraft (which account for most of the commercial aircraft in the world) they are designed to be able to keep flying in the event of an engine failure. Thankfully aircraft engines rarely fail but if […]
On January 15th, 2009, US Airways flight 1549 made a miracle landing on the Hudson River in New York after hitting a flock of Canadian geese and losing thrust on both its engines. This video recreates the 5 minute flight with actual ATC audio overlaid. You will also see written transcript of conversation inside the flight deck […]
A fully laden Boeing 777-300 can weigh over 300 tons as it takes off and just one of its engines alone is capable of lifting it safely into the air. So how do they work? (Check out the video above courtesy of CFM International) Well it helps to start by explaining how the first type of […]
Just before take-off or before coming into land during the hours of darkness, the cabin crew will usually dim the lights in the cabin. The reason for this, is that in case of any problems that might involve an evacuation, your eyes will have pre-adjusted to the dark and allow you to see a lot […]
If you’ve ever flown to St. Maarten in the Caribbean you might have noticed how close the runway is to the sea but you might not have realised how close. Visitors flock each day to Maho Beach to get a view of planes landing as they cross the fence at not much more than 100 […]
In short, yes – they can. That is if they are equipped with the appropriate technology flying into an airport which also has associated facilities. Today most commercial airliners and most major airports around the world possess each of these. On a nice sunny day when pilots have a clear view of the runway they […]
What are the chances of being involved in a plane crash? Well it obviously depends on how much you fly and where you fly, but on average your chances of being in a plane crash are 1 in 3.4 million. If you fly with one of the top 100 airlines in the world the chances […]
Up until 2003 you could fly from New York to London in under 3 hours on Concorde. On those flights the cruising speed would have been twice the speed of sound, Mach 2, but today most aircraft cruise at less than half that speed. So what speed is that? Well, most modern aircraft cruise at […]
Check out this great video from NATS (National Air Traffic Service) in the UK showing Transatlantic traffic over a 24 hour period in August 2013. Courtesy of www.nats.aero
So do the pilots actually do any flying or does the autopilot do all the work? Well it depends on the day and it depends on your definition of work – and it helps firstly by explaining how things worked before modern automation in aircraft was established. Until the late 1960’s large commercial aircraft had up […]