r/aviation

Been thinking for a while about how strange some parts of aviation are.

Take for instance the plane itself. Most of us fly planes from the peak of aviation from the 1950s-1980s. A 70+ year old flying machine! Built using airfoils from the 1930s with an engine "perfected" in the 1940s.

Many of those navigate off of radio navaids that are just as old, if not older! I was looking at old aeronautical charts and found a VOR that is turning 76 years old this year. The VOR as an invention turns 86 years old this year! Not to mention the ILS, which began in the 1930s. Or NDBs that somehow still exist 100 years later.

Much of our airfields began as intermediate landing fields for airmail biplanes. Some of our beacons have been spinning for 100 years straight. We're the last major industry to use leaded gasoline. Air Traffic Control still uses pilot reporting points. Many RCOs are still microwave-based. We still use the language used by teletype and fax machines from 100 years ago to tell us the most important details of our voyages. Before the invention of the transistor! We're still tested on the same maneuvers fighter pilots learned in WW2.

All this while using global positioning satellites and precise fuel computers. Using sophisticated autopilots that can, in some instances, even land the airplane.

A lot of aviation is "if it ain't broke" and it has worked well so far. I don't want to stop using VORs or quit flying decades-old birds, but it's a thought I've had for a while. We are such an anachronistic industry that it surprises me. The other day, I saw a brand-new Cirrus Vision Jet at the same fuel station that a 1930s staggerwing was at. To think what the staggerwing has seen and what the vision jet will see is exciting and a juxtaposition all the same.

Hello, i am a french native who has done his CPL, ME, IR and MCC in greece under HCAA, i have about 230 flight hours and am wondering what to do now, i wouldn't like to fly in Greece particularly and definitely dont want to go back to France, ideally i'd love to go to FAA but i assume with all the debt that i'm in it's better to find a job first and repay everything, I'd love to do charters/business and i've been told the best way would be to find a job on beechcraft king air, but it is apparently hard with the ammount of flight hours i have, thus comes my next question, what airline in europe is willing to fund my type rating (Or an airline with a cheap aircraft to do type rating on) can i apply to? I've heard ryanair is hard since they have their own integrated atpl program.

Thanks for the help

EDIT: I do have some people in FAA who could technically help me get a job in part 91 FAA charters, but i don't know if it's a good choice since i don't know how hard license conversions are and how hard would it be to get a work VISA

So Tuesday I was laying in my bed, when I heard a really loud rumbling directly over my house. Now I live about 30 kilometers away from from the airport in Munich, so I'm used to hearing lots of planes, but that was unusual. Upon looking into Flightradar24 I found out it was a A400M Atlas, perhaps Bundeswehr. Nothing extraordinary special, but I noticed he flew pretty low. About 2050 feet, which is about 600 metres. Now I'm asking, is it normal that they fly that low? I always thought they had to fly higher over settlement areas.

Sadly I wasn't able to see him, because my blinds were closed and he was pretty fast*.*