Australian Adventurer Illustrates Flying's Glorious Contradictions

I spend so much time writing about the safety and economics of aviation every now and then its good to go back and remember that flying was pioneered by risk takers who were motivated by many things, convention and common sense not among them.

The role of adventurers in aviation was very much on my mind while reading Dick Smith's thrill-a-page book, The Earth Beneath Me, the story of his solo helicopter flight from Fort Worth, Texas to Sydney, Australia in 1982.

What's In A Name? At Canberra Airport, No Black Box References

From every single angle the Dreamliner is a sensational story. The world is riveted to the mystery and the drama, the politics, the economics and the engineering. So what do you say we take a break from all that? 

Today, I'm writing about an enthusiastic school girl from Sydney, Australia who has taken on a campaign to honor an air safety hero. 

Most children are happy when their homework assignment gets them a good grade, but after writing a report about David Warren, the Australian who invented the black box,  11-year old Eve Cogan set her sights on convincing the executives of Australia's capital city airport in Canberra to name the airport after him.  

Who is Sexy Now? New Book Traces Evolution of Stewardesses

Watching the air show from Revel Resort

At Revel, the fancy resort where I watched Atlantic City's airshow, the weekend was dubbed, Come Fly With Me.

At the bar, specially created nightcaps had enticing names like; Up, Up and Away, Howard Hughes, The Earhart, and Wright on Track. Promotional material put out by the resort said these drinks were inspired by the desire to bring back the glamor days of air travel. (That a casino operator is longing for the romance of times past didn't come as much of a surprise; shorts and Hawaiian print shirts being the outfit of choice at most of them these days but that's another story.)

Aussie Pilot's Story Deserves Wider Audience

Outside of Australia and perhaps France, there has been remarkably little attention paid to the very, very, very, near disaster that befell Qantas Airlines Flight 32 on November 4, 2010. This, you will recall, was the Airbus A380 with 469 people on board that suffered an uncontained engine failure shortly after takeoff from Changi Airport in Singapore. 

When the left wing of the world’s largest passenger jet becomes a pin cushion for the flying shrapnel formerly known as a Rolls Royce engine, it does gets all kinds of ugly. 

Review of Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger's book, Highest Duty

There is a genre of aviation writing, typified by Antoine St. Exupery, Ernest K. Gann, Richard Bach and Rinker Buck that focuses on the link between the machine and the person flying it. These pilots write not just about the sky around them but the space within. Chesley Sullenberger’s fine memoir, Highest Duty, My Search for What Really Matters, joins this group.