Civil Aviation

Much in line with how Boeing planes start and end with the number seven, most of Airbus’ planes start with the letter A followed by the number 3. Perhaps the most iconic of Airbus A3xx series is the double-decker airliner that is the Airbus A380, which is the biggest passenger aircraft to have ever been…

Whether one agrees to Air New Zealand’s assessment that buying a red-eye flight that gives you an option of buying blocks of seats is the best way to shorten a long-haul flight while flying in economy: “Imagine a row of Economy seats that can be turned into a couch after takeoff. So you and your…

The United States of America tops the list of the nation with the highest number of fatal civil airliner accidents from 1945 until now – the nation has seen 870 accidents and 10846 fatalities (133 are ground fatalities). Next in line is Russia, the nation with which the United States of America was at loggerheads…

It might come as a surprise that there is an airport named after the largest country in the world without an airport- Andorra – but it is located outside the borders of this nation. The Andorra–La Seu d’Urgell Airport (LEU) is located in Catalonia, Spain. Andorra Airlines, a carrier headquartered in Barcelona is one of…

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) has a rather delightful program called PUPs, or Pets Unstressing Passengers. There were around 93 dogs in this airport to “spread the love at LAX’s gate areas at each terminal’s departures levels“. But these PUPs don’t board the flight. Bark Air’s introduction marked the first airline dedicated solely to the…

Concorde was an aircraft that had come after fourteen years of collaboration between France and Britain. It was sleek, agile, and had cruised at greater than Mach 2, allowing it to cross the pond in less than two hours. This aircraft saw passenger operations as far back as 1976, prompting to ask if one could…

On May 17th, 1987, a special type of Falcon 50 (dubbed Suzanna) attacked a naval frigate USS Stark patrolled the Persian Gulf. The frigate was as part of the United States’ support efforts during the Iran-Iraq war, and it was initially assessed that the sloop was chartering in international territory when it was attacked.  Suzanna…

When the former Air France chairman, Jean-Cyril Spinetta, said, “Concorde will never really stop flying because she will live on in people’s imagination”, it encapsulated everyone’s feelings. Apart from hardcore environmentalists who have maintained that an aviation world full of Concordes would simply ruin the planet (for the aircraft was a gas guzzler)…

One of the most iconic pictures in all of space science and aviation is the photograph of Antonov An-225, one of the biggest aircraft ever constructed, taking the Buran space shuttle into the skies. One can also think of the photograph of the first untethered spacewalk. When the first American who flew to space compared…