Passing the Buck: The story of the 2022 Wings Over Dallas air show collision
25 comments
·March 2, 2025wkat4242
Ohh nice!
I've been following her articles for a year or so, but I recently stopped checking her site because the articles are so few and far between now. They used to come very regularly. I'm glad she's still making new ones. The last one about egyptair was months ago. So I wasn't sure if she'd stopped or something.
I guess she's either not got much material left to write about or she's busy with other work. But I'm always happy to read new stuff <3 and it's worth waiting for.
Ps it might be a bit of a morbid interest but I fly myself and I get really interesting insights from it. I only fly small stuff but still.
Ps2 this is the second B17 crash she's written about. There's not a lot of them left now in flyable condition :'(
ddulaney
She wrote an update last year about the frequency changes: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/why-so-few-articles-late...
Definitely worth subscribing to email updates!
qsi
Also from TFA:
"Thanks for your patience in waiting for this article! After publishing my piece on EgyptAir 804 in December, I moved half way across the country in a long, messy relocation process fraught with other struggles along the way. But here I am, and here it is. Thank you!"
agsnu
I think since then it was announced that the alluded to paid gig is script work/research for https://www.youtube.com/@MentourPilot
wkat4242
Ugh what a waste of her talent. I don't know this guy but his YouTube channel is so clickbaity. Every video title has some exaggerated screamy headline. I would never bother even looking at one.
wkat4242
Ah thanks I didn't see that. Also didn't know she had a podcast as well (I don't listen to podcasts anyway so it wasn't on my radar). I did notice the articles getting longer and better though. Makes sense!
I didn't realise this was her job, I thought it was more of a side thing.
ddulaney
The podcast is super fun! It takes the “Engineering Podcast with Slides” model that WTYP originated, but instead of having one knowledgeable person and two comedians, all 3 know different parts of the industry.
azalemeth
A really sad tale, but amazingly depressing that you can work as an ATC for arguably the most difficult forms of civil aviation, with no planning, aids, or procedures -- all without qualifications.
csa
> but amazingly depressing that you can work as an ATC for arguably the most difficult forms of civil aviation, with no planning, aids, or procedures -- all without qualifications.
Your wording is ambiguous to me.
Are you talking about the “air boss” here?
ATCs get plenty of training and are qualified — several months of training plus 2-3 years of additional classroom work and OJT. Fairly high attrition rate as well (iirc).
rocqua
I believe they meant that the air boss has a role like an ATC, in a more challenging situation (because you want to keep aircraft somewhat close). Whilst at the same time the air boss doesn't need anywhere near the same training as ATCs do.
CapricornNoble
Yeah unscripted low-altitude aviation control is something a JTAC would do in combat. This is such a high-risk way to manage aircraft over a crowd of civilians, it's shocking to hear this is normalized.
krisoft
Also i don’t really understand why does it need to be improvised. The audience wants to see roaring airplanes flying by. I understand that. But why can’t the paths be pre-agreed?
roelschroeven
Fully agree, I don't understand why airshows need to have this level of improvisation, or actually any improvisation at all.
null
haunter
What’s the simulator used by NTSB? See the picture “In this image from the NTSB’s visibility study”
garaetjjte
Something FSX-based, probably Prepar3D.
>and two “scanners.” The purpose of the scanners was to stand by the B-17’s rear doors and keep lookout for other aircraft
I spoke to one of the CAF "scanners" when the B29 "FiFi" visited nearby and he said one of their roles was to watch for smoke in case one of the engines caught fire. The engines are "upgrades" from just after the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFI_(aircraft)