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RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) - Members of the Massachusetts Air National Guard left for the site of an F-15 crash late Wednesday, hours after witnesses reported seeing a parachute deploy in the air. The eyewitness accounts of a pilot ejection near Elliot Knob, Va. were first published in the Staunton News Leader, although helicopters have not found a parachute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZHhiOrxxco&feature=youtu.be Ron Schreck is a retired US Airways Captain and also a retired Lt Col who was F-4 pilot in Vietnam and later flew the F-16. The video is him taking off from Gold Hill Airpark, NC, where he lives. He built his RV-7 himself, named "Miss Izzy", and flies it frequently at airshows. Another video - of one of his airshows: From the Cockpit with Ron Schreck Another: EVV, Sunday Performance His team also does the flyby for all Carolina Panthers games.

“For a while I flew by the ship, I approached at 300 feet so he could see my landing gear and see what was going on,” Mahoney said. “At this point it was time to figure out, how do I get the jet back on the deck safely with only three landing gear?” The plan was to use a stool on the deck to stabilize the nose of the jet while Mahoney made a vertical landing using only the lights on the ship and assistance via radio from “Paddles.” “The ship had this amazing invention, called a stool, that was...

The phone of the co-pilot of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was on and made contact with a cell tower in Malaysia about the time the plane disappeared from radar, a U.S. official told CNN on Monday. However, the U.S. official — who cited information shared by Malaysian investigators — said there was no evidence the co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, had tried to make a call. The official told CNN’s Pamela Brown on Monday that a cell-phone tower in Penang, Malaysia — about 250 miles from where the flight’s transponder last sent a signal — detected the co-pilot’s phone searching for...

RUSH: I've got a call up I want to take now. It's a retired 777 pilot. If I wanted to really sound like I was hip, I'd say triple seven. If I wanted to sound like a network TV guy, I'd say we have a retired triple seven pilot, make you think I really knew what I was talking about. The man calls himself Captain Luke, and he's from South Carolina. And Captain Luke, great to have you with us on the program. Hello, sir. CALLER: Great to be back. Rush, I talked to you once before in 1990, and...

Well, what do you think, FReepers? I know the speculation is exhaustive but I've not seen nor heard any information regarding MH-370 pilot Zaharaie Shah's wife and children other than them reportedly moving out one day prior to the day of the flight. I think this could be a key clue in the plane's disappearance, hence my theory. Wouldn't photos and video of his wife be plastered throughout the media?.. and interviews? Where's the interviews?

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was an ‘obsessive’ supporter of Malaysia’s opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim. And hours before the doomed flight left Kuala Lumpur, Shah attended a controversial trial in which Ibrahim was jailed for five years. It was against this background that, seven hours later, he took control of a Boeing 777-200 bound for Beijing and carrying 238 passengers and crew. But this newspaper can reveal that investigators had already spent much of last week examining two laptops removed from Shah’s home. One laptop taken away is thought to contain data from the flight simulator while a second contained little...

"9/11 plotter released in Syria prisoner exchange" SNIPPET: "The al-Qaeda recruiter reputed to have assembled the so-called Hamburg Cell, which planned and largely carried out the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, has been set free in a prisoner exchange between rebel and regime forces in Syria. Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham has secured the release of 9/11 plotter and alleged al-Qaeda core member Mohammed Haydar Zammar, adding to concerns about the composition of the Islamic Front. A naturalized German citizen of Syrian origin, Mohammed Haydar Zammar left Germany shortly after the attacks and traveled to Morocco, where he was reportedly...

It turns out that some still aren't ready for women to fly planes, as a sexist note left by a passenger for the female pilot of his flight revealed. “The cockpit of an airliner is no place for a woman,” began the note scrawled on a napkin and left behind by a passenger on a recent WestJet flight from Calgary to Victoria, B.C. “Were (sic) short mothers, not pilots” continued the note, signed by "David," and also referenced a biblical verse. The passenger wrote he wished the airline would tell him when “a fair lady is at the helm” so...

Five years ago this month, two pilots aboard Colgan Air Flight 3407 made a series of fatal errors as they descended near Buffalo, N.Y. The plane spluttered in mid-air, tilting unnaturally, then made a terrible grinding sound as it fell near-vertical from the sky. It hit a house, exploding loudly; neighbors could see the flames from blocks away. All 49 people aboard the flight perished, as did one occupant of 6038 Long Street, which was totally destroyed. Tragedies trigger calls for action. Unfortunately, such pleas are often more emotional than rational, resulting in bad policy. The legislation passed in response...

CHILLIWACK, B.C. — A former British Columbia hang-glider pilot whose passenger fell 300 metres to her death during a flight that was an anniversary gift pleaded guilty Friday to criminal negligence causing death. William Jon Orders was charged in the death of 27-year-old Lenami Godinez-Avila, who plunged from Orders’ hang glider shortly after takeoff during a flight above B.C.’s Fraser Valley on April 28, 2012. Orders was also charged with obstruction of justice over allegations he swallowed a memory card that may have contained video of the incident. It wasn’t immediately clear what would happen to that charge.

A World War II fighter pilot who gained fame for dramatically flying beneath the Eiffel Tower's arches to take down a German aircraft has died aged 92. William Overstreet Jr. died on Sunday at a hospital in Roanoke, Virginia, according to his obituary, but there was no indication of the cause of his death. Overstreet's famously flew his P-51C 'Berlin Express' beneath the Eiffel Tower in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1944, which has been credited with lifting the spirits of French Resistance troops on the ground. For his valiant service, the French ambassador to the United States presented Overstreet with France's...

One of the first things the pilot in a fatal crash off the Hawaiian island of Molokai did after being released from the hospital was climb into the cockpit of an airplane. [….] An autopsy was conducted Friday on Fuddy but results were not yet available.... [….] If the plane is recovered, Makani Kai staff will remove the engine under the supervision by NTSB officials, Schuman said. It will be placed in a box and sealed, with the NTSB likely taking it back to the factory of engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, where engineers will take it apart to find...

The health director who approved the release of President Obama’s birth certificate has died in a plane crash, Hawaiian officials said Thursday. Loretta Fuddy died after the Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft she was travelling on went down shortly after leaving Kalaupapa Airport at around 3:15 p.m. local time (10:15 a.m. ET) on Wednesday. The other eight people on board were rescued, Richard Schuman, president of Makani Kai Air, told NBC News early Thursday, adding that that there was no indication as to why the plane had crashed. Fuddy hit the headlines two years ago when she approved a waiver request...

The "Affordable Aircraft Act" coming soon! The Affordable Aircraft Act, a new program under development which if enacted will allow every American to own a new approved (and in many cases cost subsidized) airplane. nickname: "Obamaplane". The U.S. government is contemplating new legislation called "The Affordable Aircraft Act" which declares that every citizen MUST purchase a new aircraft, by April 2016. These "affordable" aircraft will cost an average of $154,000 - $355,000 each. This does not include taxes, hangar fees, licensing and registration fees, nor ongoing costs of fuel, docking, hangar and storage fees, maintenance or repair costs or pilot...

The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday said it was making final a rule that says all commercial airline pilots hired by U.S. carriers will be required to have at least 1,500 hours of flight time. The Air Line Pilots Association, which praised the new rule, said it goes into effect Aug. 1. The FAA, in announcing that the rule will be published soon, said the new requirements were adopted in reaction to the crash of a Colgan Air airplane near Buffalo, N.Y., in 2009, in which both the captain and first officer were relatively inexperienced.

Atlantic Southeast Airlines, an Atlanta-based Delta connection regional carrier, recently made aviation history when one of its flights from Atlanta to Nashville was conducted by a crew comprised entirely of African-American women. This landmark event — which happened by chance — comes on the tail end of Black History Month. It's late but interesting to me in that I never saw a mention of these women anywhere, but there's plenty of free Obama phone ranters and race baiters in the news everyday.

For the crime of “buzzing” a crowd of European adventurers so close that he clipped one of their cars with the wing of his single-engine plane, on Friday a Yukon RCMP constable was stripped of his pilot’s license for two years.

"My dad fought a war so this can never happen in America. I will not dishonor my father's memory by giving up what he fought for. No, sir. With all due respect, I will not consent to a search without a proper warrant." James Fallows May 21 2013, 11:34 AM ET Over the weekend I related the story of Gabriel Silverstein, a businessman and pilot who for no apparent reason was subjected to a two-hour detention and invasive search by Homeland Security officials as he traveled across the country in his small plane. The picture above is not from that...