Civil Aviation

While explaining the difference between a piece of fine art and science, Niel Degrasse Tyson, a great expositor of black holes and astronomy, said that if Einstein hadn’t come up with the idea of General Relativity(that would define Black Holes, and act as a great impediment for their study too, for General Relativity has no…

9/11, the horrific incident that issued a nationwide groundstop (perhaps the first and the only one in history) led to many changes in aviation security. After this attack, it became the norm for passengers getting onboard to take off their jackets, belts, shoes, belts, winter coats etc. (before walking through the metal detector) as a…

Aviation is rife with some unique vocabulary: ETOPS (Extended-range Twin-engine Operations Performance Standards) if often jocularly, colloquially referred to as “Engines Turn or Passengers Swim”, pilots assigned on certain duties are called “Deadheads”, “George” is the name given to the aircraft’s autopilot system, the Greenwich Meredian Time is known as “Zulu Time”,  a military aircraft…

A production number of 18,400 (between 1940 and 1945 across several variants) might not be enough to ensure that the Consolidated Aircraft B-24 Heavy Bomber is one of the most impressive planes to have been produced. After all, around 20,000-30,000 units of the Polikarpov Po-2, which is the tenth most-produced plane ever, were also manufactured…

Qatar Airways(QR), referred to as an ME3 (as it is one of the three big airlines from the Middle East), operates a fleet of Airbus and Boeing aircraft. Its oldest aircraft is the Airbus A330 type, while the youngest ones are the Dreamliners it acquired a few months ago. Regardless of the aircraft type (and…

Qatar Airways, which was the first airline in the world to be “certified to the industry standard for the prevention of illegal wildlife trafficking in aviation”, operates a fleet of 235 aircraft. These aircraft include the Airbus A380 – one of the largest aircraft to have ever been made, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (the type…

Last month, a passenger traveling from Delhi Airport to Hyderabad in IndiGo Airlines – the largest carrier in India – found his check-in bag in a dilapidated condition, with its locks missing, zippers torn, and the insides tampered with. Delhi Airport, saw another incident of a similar kind, though greater and graver in scale, when…

Although the Soviet Union was mired in swashbuckling bureaucracy before its dissolution into Russia, there were a lot of Engineering marvels it produced. The first dog to make it to space was a USSR-ian, and so was the first person, the first spacewalker, and much more*. Despite such a brilliant track record, the Tupolev Tu-104…

Spring Airlines, a Chinese budget carrier, once offered an airfare of merely 13 cents (1 Yuan) for flights between Shanghai and the northern city of Jinan. In 2012, this low-cost airline made a profit of $22 million in 2021. Ryanair, perhaps the most famous budget airline, offered flight tickets for as low as €1 during…