Plane Tales

Widow Maker is an epitaph attached to aircraft that present a particular risk to the life of the pilot. Many times this name is inappropriately used but in some cases, sadly, it is all too valid.  This is the story of two such aircraft.

The Martin B-26B Marauder.

A USAF recruitment poster featuring the Marauder.

Chuck Yeager in the NF104, an aircraft that would nearly kill him after he lost control and ejected. His helmet was punctured and the oxygen within caught fire badly burning him.

The F104A.

The F104 was the first fighter to be fitted with the M61 Vulcan 20mm cannon.

Images under the Creative Commons licence, with thanks to National Museum of the USAF, Michael Wolf, Charles E Brown and the US Gov.

There are some sleek and elegant aircraft out there and some pretty ugly ones too!  Despite gaining nicknames such as the Flying Bathtub and the Flying Potato, many of these amazing flying machines did a great job in furthering our understanding of spaceflight.  This is the story of the Lifting Body aircraft.

Three of the NASA experimental lifting body aircraft.

The Mig105 Spiral, nicknamed the Flying Shoe.

Images shown under creative commons licence with thanks to NASA and Bernhard Gröhl.

Not every Plane Tale recording goes according to plan…oops!

Aeronauts, ducks, aviatrices, anhedral, terminals, slips and skids all have their place in aviation but where do these strange terms come from… particularly that old phrase, “He’s flown West.”

Luke Howard, the man who changed castles into Cumulus and mares tails into Cirrus.  No weather forecast would be complete without his system.

Cumulus cloud.

Cirrus cloud.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Acabashi and PiccoloNamek.

An attempt to distill the crash of Air France 447 down to the the simple causes and dispel some of the fanciful and unhelpful theories that surround this accident.

The accident aircraft, an A330-200.

The location of the wreckage of Flight 447.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Pawel Kierzkowski, Valter Campanato/ABr and Roberto Maltchik Repórter da TV Brasil.

My first Plane Tale when they weren’t really a thing… the story of Joe Gilmore remastered, re-recorded and revisited.  This was the vital British addition to the Apollo mission to put men on the Moon!

Otherwise known as the Four Score and Ten… created for Sir Winston Churchill on his 90th Birthday.

The drink that the first Moon walking Apollo astronauts tasted after their mission quarantine ended.

Created to celebrate the Apollo-Souyz joint project to join up in space.

Joe Gilmore’s supposed hangover cure!

Images under Creative Commons licence.

A conversation with Sir Richard Johns KCB KCVO CBE and retired Chief of the Air Force about his love of military history.

Images by NickAndersonPhoto.co.uk

An explanation of some of the strange terms that we bandy about in aviation.

Image under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Raff.

The poppies were some of the first flowers to grow over the churned battlefields and freshly turned earth of war graves during the First World War and on 3 May 1915 they inspired the Canadian physician Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae after witnessing the death of his friend and fellow soldier the day before, to write the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.

McCrae’s poem, In Flanders Fields.

The funeral of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae who was buried with full military honours.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to King W. L, MarnixR and the Guelph Museums.