Civil Aviation

    Runway of one of the most dangerous airports in the world Photo : valcker| Wikimedia commons According to Aviation and Space Dictionary compiled by Dr. Wernher, a STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) is defined as “the ability of an aircraft to clear a 50-foot obstacle within 1500 feet of commencing takeoff, or in…

Tribhuvan International Airport – the aerial entrance to Nepal – was inaugurated by King Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah in 1955 and was later named in honor of his beloved father, the late King Tribhuvan Bir Bikram Shah. This airport, which was initially dubbed to a cow’s grazing field – “Gauchar”, sees international flights from carriers…

Luxor Aerodrome Terminal, Egypt. in the year 1961. Photo: Mike Loader | Wikimedia Commons The word aerodrome is a portmanteau of Ancient Greek words ἀήρ (aḗr), which means air, and δρόμος (drómos), which means road or course, and therefore translates as “air course”. According to ICAO Annex 14, an aerodrome is defined as “a defined…

Carriers such as Gorkha Airlines and Agni Air once operated in Nepalese skies but had to shut down due to various challenges, including the country’s unpredictable weather patterns, particularly in mountainous regions, which pose significant risks for flight operations. Airports like Lukla have experienced numerous crashes and have even been labeled “the most dangerous airport…

Bird strikes, or collisions between birds and aircraft, began when what is now referred to as “mechanical birds” tread upon the space of birds. The deadliest bird strike on a fixed-wing aircraft was recorded on October 4, 1960, and this incident involving a Lockheed L-188 Electra took the lives of 62 passengers on board. In…

Sometimes, the wispy white trails that follow an aircraft on its flight aren’t contrails but fuel that has been dumped by aircraft. This is also known as fuel jettison. Fuel dumping is a last-resort maneuver whereby a plane releases fuel in mid-air. This may seem environmentally unfriendly, but it is a critical safety measure in…

The iconic supersonic jet, Concorde, (which probably had an even more iconic flight number: BA001) concluded its 27-year service with a final landing at Filton runway in November 2003. An absence of commercial viability, public concerns about the plane’s noise ( the sonic boom ) alongside high levels of pollution, led to its demise.  Concorde…

In 2018, a Swedish social movement called flygskam, meaning “flight shame,” set out to make people feel guilty about boarding a plane. Seven years later, Sweden has scrapped the aviation tax it introduced at the movement’s peak, and global air travel closed out 2024 at a record high, according to a report by Flight Global…

The rise of sustainable travel, focusing on reducing our carbon footprint, brought about the concept of “flight shame”, which was better known as “flygskam”. Individuals who were concerned about the soaring levels of CO2 emissions associated with flights came up with another alternative movement known as ‘tågskryt’ – a word that is composed of the…