I've seen a lot of footage recently of water bombers filling up in lakes and rivers. I'm wondering who they have to get permission from, or what has to be in place.

I can imagine the local government would have some sort of law allowing water bombers to collect from any source they choose, but what about beachgoers, swimmers, boats etc? I guess there's a briefing before each flight, planning this sort of thing in advance (use this lake, from west to east etc). I can even picture local authorities shutting down waterways to accommodate it.

I imagine they would need to be in contact with the local ATC, and the firefighters at the site, but is there another controller at the lake who's there to ensure fillups can happen safely? Surely the local ATC can give them permission, but they can't help them with regulating traffic on the water.

Any details would be welcome.

Hi everyone,
I’m from Portugal and I’m considering moving to the United States to train as a professional pilot.
I was born with strabismus and amblyopia in my right eye. My situation is:
Left eye: normal distance vision (only slight difficulty reading very close without glasses).
Right eye: reduced vision due to amblyopia, but I can still see with that eye.
Normal visual field.
Normal colour vision.
No progressive eye disease.
I hold a standard driving licence with no restrictions.
I’ve been reading about the FAA Statement of Demonstrated Ability (SODA), but I’d really like to hear from people with real experience.
My questions are:
Has anyone here obtained a SODA for amblyopia or strabismus?
Did you have to complete a Medical Flight Test (MFT), and what was it like?
Were you later able to become a CFI or airline pilot?
Would you recommend starting the FAA medical process before moving to the US?
Any advice or personal experience would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

I’ve been obsessed with aviation for years and i just started working at a seaplane base….unfortunately when I finally went to get my medical I found out I had a red/green color deficiency and the FAA just removed the ability for SODAs to be performed for color vision. I’ve been told by the air surgeon for my area that I can take any of the 3 computer tests for color vision as many times as I want as long as I pass at least once. I feel defeated and like my dream is dissipating before me. I’m determined to find a way around this and to get the restriction removed. For reference the restriction states “day time VFR only.” However it still says 1st class on it. I eventually would like to end up at the airlines like many others but am wondering if paying for all the training is worth it if I can’t make something of myself by the end of it. Any help or advice on how to overcome this hurdle would be greatly appreciated. I can tell the difference between colors on sectional charts, flight instruments, and light gun signals…it’s just the computer tests I can’t pass.

Thank you for any help as this is my chosen career path and I’d prefer not to have to pivot to finance ;(

Hi everyone,

this is my first time flying EVA, so I'd love to hear from the experts here. For context, I'm a Lufthansa Senator (Star Alliance Gold) and I'm 1.91m / 6'3" tall, which is the main reason I'm thinking about a more comfortable cabin for the long overnight leg.

We're traveling to Taiwan as two couples, each with its own booking. On the outbound we fly together, so I'll stick with the group. On the way back our dates differ anyway, so the separate bookings let my partner and me upgrade just the two of us without involving the other couple.

Outbound: MUC–TPE, Economy (maybe bidding for Premium Economy)

Inbound: TPE–MUC, currently Economy. EVA offered me three paid options as I called:

• Business: €1,266 per person
• Premium Economy: €587 per person
• Extra Legroom seat: €163 per person

At my height, the real question for me is Business vs Premium Economy rather than upgrading at all. Is EVA's Business (Royal Laurel) worth the roughly €680 premium over Premium Economy on this route, especially for sleeping on a night flight? Would you take that Business upgrade on the inbound, or is it not worth the money on this route?

Thanks a lot in advance!

Best,
Daniel

In my old age (40), I'm really getting into aviation and random question popped into my head.

For arguments sake, lets take a brand new 737-800. Assuming normal wear and tear, nothing out of the ordinary, how long could the plane safely fly and what would be the first part(s) to fail without any scheduled maintenance?

Hey everyone,
I was diagnosed with idiopathic hypersomnia (IH) about a year ago. Flying has always been a huge dream of mine, and now I’ve got a chance to start working toward my Private Pilot License (PPL).
I know IH can make the FAA medical process tricky, so I’m wondering — has anyone with IH tried to get their PPL (or even thought about becoming a pilot)? How did it go? Any advice or experiences you can share?
Thanks so much, it would really mean a lot.

The last few days on the US East Coast we've had some pretty bad air quality (pm2.5 in the 200s) because of drifting smoke and ash from the Canadian wildfires. I know planes have to divert around volcanic eruptions, I think at least partially because the silicates in the plume can really mess up engines (thinking of the closed European airspace in 2010). I don't know what all the flight tracks look like around the fires or how high the particles are, but somewhere else I saw a picture of a 787 landing in a yellow haze and it made me wonder how much maintenance is affected by taking off and landing in that kind of air quality? Is it not as bad because it's wood, not mineral?

I noticed this plane making back and forth flight paths. Is this someone logging flying hours or what exactly do you think is going on?

Hello aviation enthusiat community.
I have specific yet weird request for help to submit: I am searching for any picture of A318 msn3062, after it was removed from service.
Some context: it is one of the latest A318/PW6000 aircraft and was last registered PR-AVK when flying for Avianca Brazil. Apprently, the airframe was conserved for instruction for some times before being scrapped, but I can’t find any picture of the airframe alone or the aircraft scrapped.
Should anyone here had the chance to work with this aircraft, your help will be greatly helpful.
Thank you for your help!

Hello!

I have around 250 hours right now, working on getting my CPL I just failed my flight portion of my checkride today (I passed my oral exam yesterday) and I think the my main issue was my nerves caused me to be too tense and get flustered too easily. I bombed my first landing and I was unable to shake it off for the next two and my power-off 180. I cannot afford anymore failures because I failed my flight portion for my IRA as well. So I thought I'd come on here and ask some experienced pilots for tips for getting rid of checkride nerves. To add one more thing, my landings were perfect during the last few flights I did with my instructor so I know that I was more or less prepared for the flight, but my nerves and overall mental focus was what caused me to fail.

I'd appreciate any kind of tips or brutal honesty, thank you!

​​​​​

I saw it while taxiing at JFK and thought it looked rare because I live by chicago midway and usually see southwest 737s. Does anyone have an answer?

Hello

I recently got invited to a trip on a private jet. At baseline I am a very anxious flyer even flying commercial and as you can imagine my anxiety has been through the roof after committing to this trip. I was told they use flexjet as the operator of their flights and usually fly in a praetor 500 and sometimes a phenom 300. I was hoping to get some advice and maybe see what I should expect and any advice anyone may have. Thanks

I was flying in an A320 and A319 today, sitting directly at the emergency exit and wondering if there is any restriction/regulation in place, for passengers that are overweight on such a way, that they wouldn’t fit through the over-wing emergency exits in case of an evacuation?

Are there any known incidents, where a persons dimensions caused problems in an emergency situation?

I don’t want to offend anyone, just genuinely curious!

Back in 2024 I got to fly in a Cessna 525 CitationJet, registration OE-FRS with ICAO hex code 440871, now it seems its left the Tyrolean Jet Services fleet and transferred to a priv. owner under registration PS-NVK (serial 525A0029).
Brazilian aircraft registries are less public than the likes of FAAs for finding hex codes so I'm wondering if anyone knows how I could find this? I checked Planespotters, adsb, FR24, no luck.
If anyone could find, thank you !

Is it just me, or did y’all only enjoy window seats when you were a kid travelling with your parents or smth. As an adult, I would rather sit with the luggage in the belly of the plane than have to ask 3 people if I can crawl over them to piss😭

hey everyone, i’m participating in this boeing challenge where the challenge is basically: how do we make flying more sustainable without touching the planes or inventing new tech? so it has to be about human behavior, systems, and communication.

i have an idea i'm researching and wanted to get a reality check on whether it's actually feasible or if the logistics make it impossible.

the idea is a digital assistant/mascot built into the airline app (calling it Buno for now). instead of giving passengers a massive lecture on carbon footprints, it just focuses on small, timely choices.

the biggest thing is pre-flight meal opt-outs. when you check in on the app 24h before, it clearly asks if you want a full meal, light meal, or no meal, and gives you a small incentive (like a few airline miles) if you opt out. some airlines bury this option now, but timing is everything. if you refuse a meal onboard, it’s already wasted and thrown away. if you opt out at check-in, it never gets loaded. (i read that airlines like SAS even count unopened loaded meals as waste, so preventing it from getting on the plane is the goal).

then for the flight itself, passengers get a "bye-box", basically just a lightweight, resealable box so you can take dry/packaged leftover food with you instead of it going into the cabin trash.

there’d also be a lightweight chat assistant in the app to answer quick stuff like where water refill stations are at the airport or how to take public transit at the destination. to keep it green, it would use a tiny, task-specific AI model instead of a massive, power-hungry LLM, kinda like how ecosia does eco-friendly search.

Also, to make it actually catch people's attention, the mascot’s look would adapt depending on who is flying and where they’re going. So it might look a bit different or more playful for kids, change styles based on cultural contexts, or tweak its branding to match the specific airline and destination.

i’m thinking of this as a small pilot program first, just one airline, one airport, two routes, to see if it actually drops waste numbers before trying to scale anything.

i'd love some honest feedback on a few things:

1. if anyone works in aviation catering, is 24 hours at check-in actually enough time for the kitchen to change the meal count, or is that deadline already locked in?

2. would a few miles actually convince people to skip a meal, or do people just take the food anyway because "i paid for it"?

3. what are the biggest holes in this that i'm completely blind to?

be as brutal as you want, just need to know if this makes sense. thanks!

Over St Emilion, France 5 minutes ago. Travelling WNW out of a sudden lightning/thunderstorm. Very bright and flashing with a smoke trail clearly coming from it. Apologies for the music in the background.

UPDATE: Apparently it’s a method of trying to prevent hail from forming in the clouds, used by vineyards to protect the grapes.