Pakistan's only female fighter pilot

Pakistan's only female fighter pilot becomes role model for millions of girls.

If border sniping should ever descend into all-out war between India and Pakistan, Ayesha Farooq will be one of the first pilots into the air.


Ayesha Farooq completed her training to become Pakistan's first war-ready female fighter pilot, flying the F7-PG, a Chinese version of the MiG 21 jet Photo: REUTERS

By Rob Crilly, Islamabad
5:13PM BST 01 Sep 2013

She has already made history by becoming the first woman assigned to one of Pakistan's front line dogfighting squadrons. Now at the age of 26 Flight Lieutenant Farooq says she is ready for the ultimate test.
 

"If war breaks out, I will be flying on my senior's wing as his wingman, well, wingwoman," she said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph at the headquarters of the Pakistan Air Force in Islamabad.
 

India and Pakistan remain locked in a stand-off over the disputed territory of Kashmir. It has twice since partition been the cause of all-out wars and the dispute is flaring once again. Both sides have claimed they have been attacked with artillery and small arms. Last month, India accused Pakistani forces of killing five of its soldiers, stoking anger among Hindu nationalists of the BJP, although the killings were denied by Islamabad   Read more...

Rosie the Riveter

At 93, this Rosie is still riveting

   Elinor Otto, 93, in the living room of her home in Long Beach. If she were younger, she jokes, she would look at herself now and wonder, "What's that old bag still doing here?" (Genaro Molina, Los Angeles Times)

 

Elinor Otto picked up a riveting gun in World War II, joining the wave of women taking what had been men's jobs. These days she's building the C-17.          

By Samantha Schaefer

Sept. 18, 2013

Elinor Otto braces her slight frame and grips the riveting gun with both hands, her bright red hair and flowered sweater a blossom of color in Long Beach's clanking Boeing C-17 plant.

 

Boom, boom, boom.

She leans back as the gun's hammer quickly smacks the fasteners into place.  Read more... 

Rosie on YouTube

Giant Concrete Arrows

Giant Concrete Arrows...

 

This Really Exists:

Giant Concrete Arrows That

Point Your Way Across America...

 

 

Every so often, usually in the vast deserts of the American Southwest,

a hiker or a backpacker will run across something puzzling:

a large concrete arrow, as much as seventy feet in length,

sitting in the middle of scrub-covered nowhere.  Read more...

Low and Slow - Asiana Airlines Flight 214

This is one of the first and most important things you learn in flight training when learning to land - don't get low and slow!

Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was a scheduled transpacific passenger flight from Incheon, South Korea, that crashed on final approach to San Francisco International Airport in the United States on July 6, 2013. Of the 307 people aboard the Boeing 777, two passengers died at the crash scene (one from being run over by an airport crash tender), and a third died in a hospital several days later. One hundred and eighty-one others were injured, 12 of them critically. Among the injured were three flight attendants who were thrown onto the runway while still strapped in their seats when the tail section broke off after striking the seawall short of the runway.
Neither the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) nor the South Korean Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board has issued a preliminary report; both have held multiple press briefings to provide facts.
Read more...

Video:  Animated reconstruction of Asiana Flight 214
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10179596/Animated-reconstruction-of-Asiana-flight-214-crash-at-San-Francisco-Airport.html

Be sure to view this:
New Runway Approach Lights at SFO

Amelia Earhart namesake to re-create famed pilot's final flight

Amelia Rose Earhart, a namesake and distant relative of the famed aviator plans to re-create Earhart's attempted flight around the world next summer.

Earhart, an anchor for KUSA-TV in Denver, made the announcement Wednesday at an experimental aircraft show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the station reported.

"One year from now I will be completing, symbolically completing, and recreating Amelia Earhart's historic flight around the world. It's a dream that I've had since I was about 18 years old," Earhart said.

Mystery has surrounded Amelia Earhart's fate since her plane went missing in 1937 in the South Pacific during her quest to become the first woman to fly around the world.

Earhart told KUSA-TV she plans to retrace her distant relative's exact flight path in a Pilatus PC-12 NG, a single-engine turbine aircraft.  Read more...

Nadezhda Popova, WWII ‘Night Witch,’ Dies at 91

The Nazis called them “Night Witches” because the whooshing noise their plywood and canvas airplanes made reminded the Germans of the sound of a witch’s broomstick.

The Russian women who piloted those planes, onetime crop dusters, took it as a compliment. In 30,000 missions over four years, they dumped 23,000 tons of bombs on the German invaders, ultimately helping to chase them back to Berlin. Any German pilot who downed a “witch” was awarded an Iron Cross.

These young heroines, all volunteers and most in their teens and early 20s, became legends of World War II but are now largely forgotten. Flying only in the dark, they had no parachutes, guns, radios or radar, only maps and compasses. If hit by tracer bullets, their planes would burn like sheets of paper. Read more...

Landing on the Nose Wheel

Lift that nose up and flare!!!

NTSB Investigating 737 Nose-Gear Failure


The nose landing gear collapsed as a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 was landing at New York's LaGuardia Airport at 5:45 p.m. on Monday. The gear failed rearward and upward, the NTSB said on Tuesday afternoon, damaging the electronics bay. The exterior fuselage also was damaged from sliding 2,175 feet on its nose along Runway 4 before coming to rest off the right side of the runway. All 150 on board evacuated the airplane. Three passengers and five crew were taken to local hospitals, where they were treated and released, according to Southwest. The runway was closed for over an hour.  Read more and watch the video...

Fuel: The Money You Save And The Price We'll Pay?

I thought this was an interesting article considering we all want general aviation to not only survive, but thrive.

April 18, 2013

by Glenn Pew

Contributing Editor, Video Editor

Tecnam USA CEO Phil Solomon thinks he sees the beginnings of a problem for general aviation, and we may all be a part of it.
Solomon believes he's watching a transformation take place in aviation. It's starting at the grass roots level and extending all the way to the FAA. And each level plays off the other for an overall negative effect. As Solomon describes it, this transformation begins with the desire for lower fuel costs but ends as a long term detrimental impact on general aviation. After hearing his concerns and experiences we went out in the world to learn if, or how, other people were affected. This is what we found.

Read more...

Exclusive: Lion Air crash pilot felt jet "dragged" from sky

Recently in the Bay Area we have experienced continued extreme windy conditions accompanied by major turbulence with SFO regularly reporting winds up to 45-50 kts.  Many of the smaller airports such as SQL, PAO, and HWD have reported winds as high as 28 gusting 38 kts. 

A few days ago around 2 pm a student and I were going out for some traffic pattern work at PAO.  The winds were manageagle but then started picking up dramatically as we taxied out.  By the time we took off the winds were 18 gusting to 22-25 kts about 30 degrees off the runway heading.  So I said to my student that the first one would be a test and we would make a decision wether to continue after that.

Sure enough it was quite turbulent, and then on final the preceding aircraft reported -15 kts of windshear.  Well that made the decision...and we terminated the flight.  ATC is required to announce the pilot report of windshear and then record it on the subsequent ATIS. When I flew for the airlines, any detection of windshear was an automatic go-around.

Exclusive: Lion Air crash pilot felt jet "dragged" from sky

By Tim Hepher and Trisha Sertori

PARIS/DENPASAR, Indonesia (Reuters) - The pilot whose Indonesian jet slumped into the sea while trying to land in Bali has described how he felt it "dragged" down by wind while he struggled to regain control, a person familiar with the matter said.

.

All 108 passengers and crew miraculously survived when the Boeing 737 passenger jet, operated by Indonesian budget carrier Lion Air, undershot the tourist island's main airport runway and belly-flopped in water on Saturday.

Read more...

Life in a World Without Towers

by Paul Bertorelli
Editorial Director
March 28, 2013

So now that all the towers are closed, what are we to do? Will chaos reign? Have the dogs of doom been loosed? Not quite, but depending on where you fly, there could be some challenges ahead that will be unnerving. And just to put some numbers on it, the FAA-announced closures will shutter 149 of 516 control towers in the U.S. or 29 percent. It's not a trivial number so irrespective of safety or risk, many of us will have to adapt to operational changes.


On the other hand, for pilots already operating out of non-towered airports and who don't fly IFR much, if it all, it will be business as usual. It probably will not be business as usual for IFR operations, however. The control facilities which handle these—Centers and TRACONs—will be impacted by furloughed staff and controllers tell us service will inevitably suffer, we just don't know how much. One way to look at the tower closures is to consider VFR operations first, then IFR ops.  Read more...

FAA plan to close towers a ‘flawed policy assault on pilots’

March 25, 2013 by General Aviation News Staff

DUPAGE, Ill. — A federal plan to impose across-the-board spending cuts by closing 149 active control towers nationwide will compromise air safety and “should not stand,” according to Craig Fuller, president and CEO of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA).

“The White House does not understand the consequences of these actions, or they do and they simply do not care,” Fuller said. “Either way, this approach is dangerous and should not stand.”

Speaking to a group of more than 100 pilots at an AOPA pilot town hall at DuPage Airport outside of Chicago, Fuller said that FAA cuts directed by the White House will have a serious impact on general aviation in the United States. 
Read more...

Schedule for tower closures released

The FAA has released its three-part phase in period for closing federal contract towers. On April 7, 24 contract towers will close, followed by 46 on April 21, and the remaining 79 on May 5. The FAA is closing the towers based on activity levels, with the first to close having fewer than 1,000 commercial operations in fiscal year 2012. The second group had fewer than 2,500 commercial operations.

Earlier in March, AOPA President Craig Fuller warned FAA Administrator Michael Huerta that the “cuts will have unacceptable consequences for the nation and the flying community.”  Read more...

Women of Aviation Worldwide Week March 4-10, 2013

EXCITEMENT IS BUILDING FOR THE 3RD ANNUAL 'WOMEN OF AVIATION WORLDWIDE WEEK' - MARCH 4-10, 2013!

"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."

This observation made by American judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in the late 1800s describes perfectly the impact of the Women Of Aviation Worldwide Week initiative.



Not only are we getting ready to stretch the minds of thousands of girls and women during the 3rd annual Women Of Aviation Worldwide Week but we are also getting ready to stretch the minds of many stakeholders in our beloved industry.

When midnight strikes on March 10 2013, no one involved will return to his or her original mindset. Girls and women will know that contributing to the air and space industry is for them too. CEOs of aerospace corporations, presidents of associations, and aviation educators will irrevocably know that girls and women are interested and eager to join our industry and will begin to take steps to assist their inclusion.

The wind of change is blowing. Each one of us is responsible for creating this powerful flow.

Let's never forget that individual air molecules acting together are responsible for the magical lift force that allows us to soar. Our coordinated individual actions are generating a force strong enough to lift our industry and society.

One flight, one community at a time. Worldwide. Together, we are better.

For information about how to organize an event, visit:  www.womenofaviationweek.org/event/organizing-an-event/

To locate an event near you, visit: www.womenofaviationweek.org/event/event-list-registration/