Word of the Day
Pugnacious (adj., pug-NAY-shuss)
By nature, eager and quick to fight. Note: does not necessarily apply to the dog of the same name, but "terriernacious" doesn't sound as good.
Gif of the Day
FireWaterNot helpfulMissed it by that muchDid that go as you hoped? Nope.Bucket brigade?
Link of the Day
The Gimli Glider
The title of this article says it all:
In 1983, two pilots miraculously landed a jumbo jet with no fuel from 40,000 feet
The story, as captured by Timeline, is both crazy and multifaceted. It's one of those flying stories that lingers in the background of every trade story discussions, showing both how crazy things can get and how good pilots can be. The two pilots in this story got the plane down with no true runway, almost no power, and no major injuries. It's a great read:
The plane was brand new, and came with some novel glitches in its computer-based fuel-measurement system—not to mention a processor disconnected due to improper soldering. Canada’s recent pivot from the imperial to the metric system didn’t help either. The 767 was among the first aircraft in Air Canada’s fleet to abide by the new metric measurements, and the formula pre-flight engineers used to manually account for the fuel load solved not for kilograms but for the more diminutive pound. These problems, plus a broken chain of communication, caused two experienced Air Canada pilots to leave the ground with only 9,144 of the requisite 20,400 kilograms of fuel, less than half of what they would need to fly the scheduled 2,100 miles from Montreal to Edmonton.
Go read the whole thing over at Timeline.
AircraftO CanadaPeople who are better than youThat one time...You have my sword?