Forums: Aviation

The head of memory chip maker Micron, long known for taking risks in stunt piloting, died Friday when a small experimental plane he was piloting steeply banked, stalled and crashed near an Idaho runway. Steve Appleton, who survived a similar crash eight years ago and had a reputation as a hard-driving daredevil, was the only person aboard the plane when witnesses said it crashed shortly after its second take-off attempt in Boise, according to safety investigators.

As United Airlines retires its last Boeing 737, the Tribune looks back at some of the aircraft the carrier has used from its start as the nation's first coast-to-coast mail and passenger service.

In the thick of the Cold War, the Soviet Union built an immense vessel to carry their troops across the seas and into Western Europe. Equipped with nuclear warheads and able to blast across the sea at 340 mph, the Lun-class Ekranoplane; part plane, part boat, and part hovercraft — is a Ground Effect Vehicle (GEV). A GEV takes advantage of an aeronautical effect that allows it to lift off with an immense amount of weight, but limits its flight to 16 feet above the waves. Its altitude can never be greater than the length of the wings. Think of...

Alaska Airlines, America's seventh-largest carrier in terms of passenger traffic, said on Wednesday that it would end a decades-old tradition of handing out prayer cards with its in-flight meals. The prayer cards, which the Seattle-based airline began offering in the 1970s after an executive spotted them on another airline, were intended to serve as a marketing strategy and to put passengers at ease, a spokeswoman said. The airline sent an e-mail to its frequent flyers on Wednesday explaining the change, which takes effect February 1.

Despite suffering severe injuries in the worst air race accident in the U.S. in more than a half a century, some victims have told their lawyer they would like to attend future races.

Australian aircraft engineers have called for Airbus A380 - the world's biggest passenger aircraft - to be grounded, after Singapore Airlines and Qantas found cracks in the wings of their super-jumbos. 'We can't continue to gamble with people's lives and allow those aircraft to fly around and hope that they make it until their four-yearly inspection,' said Steve Purvinas, secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association.

It will be a while before the NTSB issues its findings about the crash of The Galloping Ghost at the Reno Air Races this year. There were so many witnesses, however, and photographic and video coverage of the disastrous accident was so clear, that it did not take long for theorizing about the cause to converge on a single scenario.