Passenger opens an emergency exit, mistaking it for the bathroom: Plane passenger opens emergency exit thinking it was the toilet | CNN
The great outdoors, nature’s bathroom.
In other news, SOFIA is in New Zealand at the moment.
An interesting CNN piece on what it takes to be a NASA astronaut today (and the competition is still fierce!): Training to become an astronaut: A history | CNN
Transport Canada upped it to a 12 hr bottle-to-throttle rule late last year. This impacts pilots & crew. Balloonist have typically done a champagne toast since the second ever flight back in the late 18th century. I wasn’t able to go due to work, but I heard there were apparently a lot of unhappy people at the festival in Quebec province last month as it basically meant breaking tradition as well as no drinking at all when you fly twice a day. (Though unfavorable weather only allowed eight of 18 flight windows to occur.)
The US Military / NOAA routinely fly into hurricanes to get weather data on them. Earlier today I saw a cool picture from inside the eye.
That would be a really cool shot to get; therefore, hypothetically, we’re going to take one of the Dope’s fleet of aircraft & fly into it ourselves.
- Besides being a bad idea, are there any regs that would prevent us from making that flight?
- What is the minimum sized aircraft that we should use as I assume we’d want something more substantial than a single-engine Cessna 1xx? It seems that most of the aircraft used are either C-130s or P-3s. NOAA also has some G-IVs but I’m unclear if the Gulfstreams go into the storm or just near/around it.
2a. Is there a benefit to props vs. jet engines when flying into a hurricane? IOW why do they fly what they do into them?
Under Part 91 we could be charged with careless and reckless operation. Which is what I’m going to claim no matter how well we plan and how much armor is on the plane - I’m not going! 
Here’s an interesting video of a Japanese B-17 squadron. I knew the Germans had some captured Flying Fortresses but didn’t realize the Japanese did as well. This fella behind the video is always producing some great quality videos about topics I had no knowledge of:
Here’s how to fly like a rock star (or British royalty): How Meghan and Harry will fly to South Africa | CNN
British Navy catapult launch and recovery. All the detail that goes into a launch.
It was so complicated and low-tech I had to laugh. Hmm… looked like a bullet hole in the starboard windscreen at 15:36. And I wouldn’t want to be one of the men standing right there as the plane whizzed by at 15:53!
The 2019 White House Christmas Tree ornament honors Ike and the first Presidential helicopters: Official 2019 White House Christmas Ornament – White House Historical Association
Investigating high-altitude health problems for US military pilots: An Airborne Mystery | Think magazine | CWRU
Much better than First Class: http://www.kaamranhafeez.com/product/ruling-class-new-yorker-cartoon/
Do you know why that helicopter is shaped the way it is?
the pilot is sitting above and behind a radial engine in the nose of the aircraft. It was a goofy-ass thing.
This fella has done some great videos about little known aviation subjects(at least to me) and his latest is no exception. I vaguely recall seeing something about the rotodyne in a magazine article but that was decades ago and I completely forgot about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkJOm1V77Xg
Here’s CNN on the market in big superluxury jets: Luxury jets whisk VIPs in flying palaces | CNN
London to Sydney nonstop - ten things we learned from the world’s longest flight: Qantas nonstop flight from London to Sydney: What we learned | CNN
What if your plane didn’t land?
That’s just embarrassing. I bet the other pilots are all going to make fun of him now.
Not nearly so funny: an Aeroflot liner had to make an emergency landing after a pilot had a heart attack: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/26/europe/aeroflot-pilot-heart-attack-scli-intl/index.html
The thing is, though, it did come to ground eventually. Aviation has a 100% record. We’ve never left one up there yet!