Ok folks, this video is awesome! An unknown Chinese farmer built a small airplane called the Shanzhai Glider out of what look like lawn mower parts!

Frankly, there is no way this guy could get a certification from the FAA for this flying death trap, but I guess it wouldn’t phase him a bit anyway. He’s obviously perfectly happy risking his life so he can buzz all his neighbors and show them how ingenious he is.
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So, after a stressful last few days of watching the stock market, I thought it might be fun to take a look at something really, really stressful. Like how about trying to land an airplane on an aircraft carrier!

So, the next time you’re feeling like you’re having a tough day, just remember what it would be like to try and spot a boat in the middle of the Pacific and then maneuver your tiny little plane to land on it while it’s in motion.
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Here is an amazing clip of a small plane crash landing in California when one of it’s landing gears refused to function properly. Funny thing is, there wasn’t really any “crash” in the landing.

What makes this especially interesting is that someone apparently got another plane up in the air in time to film what was going on, and they did a really good job of capturing the entire event.

POINT MUGU, California
Monday Jul 30, 2007
A twin-engine turboprop aircraft with its left main landing gear stuck in the up position skidded to a safe landing at a Navy air station Monday.Twelve people were aboard.

The civilian Grumman G-159 was on a shuttle flight from the military’s San Nicolas Island to Point Mugu.

The Phoenix Air plane carrying nine passengers and three flight crew members circled for about an hour to burn off excess fuel.

The airplane came in with its left engine feathered — the propeller slowly turning — and it set down gently before settling onto its left wing, then skidded to its left off the runway and onto an unpaved area.

Everyone aboard jumped out of the aircraft as fire trucks sprayed the craft.
There was no fire and the plane appeared to be repairable.

San Nicolas is a Navy-owned island off Southern California. The plane is leased to shuttle military personnel and civilian workers between the mainland and the island.

Point Mugu Naval Air Station is part of the Navy base in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles.

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For anyone sensitive to plane crashes, you won’t find this funny… but for everyone else, the surprise ending on this commercial will make you laugh.

This one apparently comes from a European travel agency. Enjoy.
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Can someone please tell me why the Russians are taunting the British by flying bomber/reconnaissance planes to the border of British airspace?

With relations between Russia and Britain deteriorating, the number of incidents in which Russia’s submarines have been found close to British shores or in contact with Royal Navy warships has also risen, reports said yesterday. London’s Daily Telegraph said there was a suggestion Russia could be testing the West’s air detection systems and response times.

Diplomatic tensions between London and Moscow — already stretched by the murder in London of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko — intensified as the Bear bombers headed towards Britain. It was the first time Russian bombers had threatened to penetrate British airspace since President Vladimir Putin indicated, with no little chutzpah, that he had ordered his bomber force to resume long-range patrols around the world.

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I’ve been talking about how crappy airline service has become lately, and I just read this article from the Wharton School which I thought I’d share:

Wharton professor Serguei Netessine’s trip from Philadelphia to Dallas in May was an all-too-typical day in the sky.

After circling Dallas for an hour because of stormy weather, his flight was diverted to San Antonio where he spent several hours on the runway waiting for the storms in Dallas to clear and eating a bag of peanuts for lunch. He arrived in Dallas five hours late and missed most of his scheduled meetings, rescheduled his appointments for later in the day and succeeded in booking — actually overbooking, as it turned out — what he thought would be an evening flight back to Philadelphia. He had no choice but to fly home the next day after paying $400 for the only room available at the airport Park Hyatt.

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I travel. A lot! What’s a lot? Well, in the last 8 weeks I’ve been on 20 different airplanes. (And I’m writing this while waiting for a flight now…) And you know what I’m sick of even more than the overpriced airlines and late arrivals? The other passengers.

I’ve developed the following list of rules that people need to follow for the general betterment of mankind when traveling by air. If you violate them, just know that I – and probably everyone else – am cursing you and wishing horrible things upon your bloodline.
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Last Christmas I got both a remote control helicopter and plane, and I’ve been practicing a lot. So when my buddy Bruce sent me one of these YouTube video clips I realized just how much more practice I need.

The following are some of the finest remote control pilots I’ve seen. I cannot express to you how much dexterity and concentration this takes, because these guys make it look much too easy.
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I’m not really sure what to call these other than AWESOME! Apparently some Swiss aviator has developed a set of jet powered wings because jumping out of a plane with a parachute was just too boring.

It’s hard to say exactly how fast he’s traveling, but considering that he’s traveling at the same speed as the airplanes he’s flying with I’m going to guess that it’s at least 150-200 MPH.
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I guess it takes practice to master any skill, but seriously… this guy must have practiced a LOT!

I’ve never seen a remote controlled airplane do anything like the stunts this guy performs – much less doing them inside a gym where you could hit walls, the ceiling and the ground.
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I’m no pilot, but for Christmas I did get two new awesome remote control toys: A Blade CX2 electric helicopter and an AeroBird Swift electric airplane. These are not the cheap kind you get at Toys R Us, but the high end ones that come only from hobby stores. (Reviews coming soon…)

Having never owned any high-end R/C machines before I unpacked my toys and proceeded to immediately crash them, with impunity!

After this costly little experience I decided that perhaps it would be less costly to get a little “virtual” practice before I put myself in the poor house buying replacement parts.

Not wanting to spend a fortune on flight simulation games either, I began searching for free ones that would be both entertaining and educational. Here now is my thoroughly tested list of top free flight sims.
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FBOWeb.com has created a very cool real-time flight tracking feature for Google Earth. Obviously, in order to try this out you’re going to need Google Earth (if you don’t yet have it, you can learn about and download it here.)

Essentially, FBOWeb’s servers update the status of all the aircraft coming into the following airports (they are constantly adding new ones, so check their site if you’re reading this more than a few weeks after publishing):
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