Top Stories of 2022

One of the most compelling aviation-related news stories of the year was only slightly less compelling when it became clear that it wasn’t true. The Ghost of Kyiv was the nickname given by Ukrainians to a fighter pilot flying courageously to stave off Russian fighters that were attacking the capital city of Kyiv during the […]

Another one of the top stories in 2022 was the destruction of one of Ukraine’s national treasures, the giant Antonov An-225, by many metrics the world’s largest plane. Built to transport the Soviet Union’s Space Shuttle, called Buran, the An-225 was nicknamed Mryia (for Dream). But when Russian forces invaded Ukraine earlier this year, they […]

It’s the stuff of both dreams and nightmares, a scenario where the pilot is incapacitated and a passenger needs to take control, but it happened in real life earlier this year when Darren Harrison, a passenger in a Cessna Caravan, was returning from a fishing trip in the Bahamas. As the plane flew along, Harrison saw that […]

In April, popular backcountry aviator Trent Palmer revealed via a YouTube video that the FAA had suspended his certificate for 60 days after he made what he calls an “inspection pass” of a friend’s would-be landing strip in rural northern Nevada, but which the FAA saw as a buzz job. In a YouTube video that Palmer released, […]

Speaking of stunts gone wrong, a pair of Red Bull demonstration pilots, cousins Luke Aikins and Andy Farrington, attempted a stunt in which each pilot bailed out of his identically equipped Cessna 182 aircraft with the intent of flying into the vacated cockpit of the other plane. It didn’t quite go off as planned. Aikins […]

It was actually in late 2021 that YouTuber Trevor Jacob caused a stir with a video showing him bailing out of his airplane after, he said, it had developed engine trouble over a remote area in California. Jacob, who was wearing a parachute, was unhurt, though it did take many hours for him to hike […]

After years of delaying the release, Paramount finally gave the go-ahead for its high-dollar sequel to the original flick, the new one called “Top Gun: Maverick,” with A-lister Tom Cruise reprising his now-titular role of Maverick, the authority-bucking, uber-talented fighter jock. To the surprise of just about everyone—the first movie was super popular but critically […]

Who knew that the coronavirus pandemic would be the best thing to happen to airline hiring ever, but it has been. With the pandemic on the decline in 2022, airline travel picked up, to record numbers, in fact, and it quickly became clear that the airline pilot shortage analysts had been predicting for several years […]

Airshow performer and former Naval aviator Dale “Snort” Snodgrass died in the crash of a light plane at the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Airport in western Idaho in 2021. Snodgrass was flying an SIAI-Marchetti SM.1019, an Italian liaison plane with a turboprop conversion that was developed based on the design of the Cessna L-19 Bird Dog. […]

In an unexpected move, early this year FAA Administrator Steve Dickson announced he was stepping down from the FAA’s top job, he said, to spend more time with his family. Appointed by then-President Trump in 2019, Dickson took the reins from Michael Huerta, who was at the helm of the agency for five years. Dickson’s […]