The main reason why aircraft are painted white or light colours is to reflect sunlight and minimise both the heat and any potential damage from solar radiation. #Aircraft #Aviation

The A350 programme is reported to have reached a break-even point in 2020 meaning it took only five years. Boeing’s 787 only recently achieved this in February 2024, and it’s been in service for over 12 years. #Aircraft #Aviation

The word radar comes from the acronym “RAdio Detection And Ranging”. #Aircraft #Aviation

The airline industry generated $803 billion in 2023. #Aircraft #Aviation

The Dreamliner is Boeing’s most eco-friendly airliner. It was designed to be 20% more fuel efficient than the 767 and incorporates primarily composite materials in the airframe construction.  #Aircraft #Aviation

The crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123 on August 12, 1985, has the highest number of fatalities for any single-aircraft accident: 520 people died onboard a Boeing 747. #Aircraft #Aviation

A British man who needed to fix a typo on a plane ticket found it was cheaper to change his name & get a new passport than pay the airline's name-change fee - so he did it. #Aircraft #Aviation

The Concorde was so fast you could watch the sun set in London and watch it rise again in the West as you flew to New York. #Aircraft #Aviation

The Boeing 747 first flew in February 1969, five months before Apollo 11 landed on the moon.  #Aircraft #Aviation

At any given time, there are between 8,000 and 13,000 airplanes in the air. #Aircraft #Aviation

The B-2 bomber can reach a high subsonic speed of over 1,000 km/h and can also reach an altitude of more than 50,000 feet. #Aircraft #Aviation

Pinal Air Park in Arizona is the world’s largest commercial airplane boneyard. #Aircraft #Aviation

The United States Airforce maintains a fleet of Boeing E4-B 'Doomsday' planes. They’re capable of being airborne for a week, cost nearly $160k per hour for the Air Force to operate, & have a 5 mile long trailing wire antenna to communicate with nuclear subs. #Aircraft #Aviation

FedEx nearly went bankrupt in the early days. Its founder, Fred Smith, took the company's last $5,000 and impulsively flew to Las Vegas to play blackjack with it. He turned it into $27,000 - enough to keep FedEx going until more funding came along. #Aircraft #Aviation

In 1931, William McBoyle stole an airplane in Canada but was acquitted on all charges because airplanes were not considered 'Vehicles' and there was no law against aircraft theft at the time. #Aircraft #Aviation

Boeing produced its 10,000th 737 aircraft in March of 2018. #Aircraft #Aviation

A Singapore Airlines cargo flight had to make an emergency landing in Bali due to a smoke sensor being triggered from the dung and farts of the 2,186 sheep aboard the plane. #Aircraft #Aviation

Before 1996, travelers were not required to present any form of ID before boarding a plane and a large secondary market for airline tickets existed. It was finally implemented as a knee-jerk response to the TWA flight 800 mystery. #Aircraft #Aviation

In 2006, the airline Alitalia experienced a computer glitch that changed the price of business class tickets from Toronto to Cyprus from $3,900 to $39. The mistake cost Alitalia over $7 million. #Aircraft #Aviation

The CEO of Japan Airlines makes $90,000 a year, less than the pilots. When he was interviewed: 'We in Japan learned during the bubble economy that businesses who pursue money first fail. The business world has lost sight of this basic tenet of business ethics” #Aircraft #Aviation