aircraft navigation (3)

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by Javier Pedreira

Even with all the signs and signals on the roads and motorways, all of us have at one time or another gotten lost whilst driving. It would be natural to imagine, therefore, that in the vast expanse of the sky it would be quite easy to get lost without any signals for guidance. However, the fact is that there are indeed signals up there to rely upon.

Going back to the early days of aviation, it’s true that the intrepid pilots of the day did have to rely upon navigation by sigh

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Landing Jetliners in Crosswinds



by José Miguel Rodriguez

Not long ago, this video went viral on YouTube, racking up more than 10 million views. Apart from the fact that the 1,200-millimetre telephoto lens thoroughly flattens both the foreground and background, making the airplanes seem suspended in midair, what on earth are these pilots up to? Specifically, what’s up with the bizarre landing technique

Believe it or not this technique is standard, by-the-book practice when there are strong lateral winds present during landing

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by Javier Pereira

One of the first things we learn in school about geometry (more specifically, plane geometry) is that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Obvious, right? And yet…

The fact is, this obvious truism is only true in two dimensions, as on a flat map, which is how we usually think of the world. But when it comes to spherical geometry – and, unless you’re a Flat Earther, our planet is more or less a sphere – that’s simply not the case.

If you’ve ever tried to fla

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