Category: Aviation

By:​Capt. W. Patrick Gordon, M.Sc.January 1986Flying Magazine “Minifeature” It seems you hear more and more pilots bemoaning the fact that there is no longer any romance in aviation. I vote that’s ridiculous. There’s still lots of romance left. We all get jaded and just lose sight of what romance is. ​ On a recent trip…

By:Capt. W. Patrick Gordon, M.Sc.March 1997Professional Pilot Magazine The trip to Europe came up suddenly and there had been no time to leave word that I wouldn’t be around to have dinner that night with my pal. I knew, having been in the flying business for years, Clint would understand we would get together another…

By:Capt. W. Patrick Gordon, M.Sc.March 1994 Being a little too long in the tooth, and not naturally predisposed toward hero worship anyway, I still enjoy admiring people who have achieved a degree of success in their chosen callings. As a result, I sometimes find myself putting these folks on a pedestal and am disappointed when…

By:Capt. W. Patrick Gordon, M.Sc.Published in the International Business Aircraft Council monthly magazine in 1986 What’s a corporate airplane without a bar on it, right? Everyone knows the passengers like a little hit now and then. It puts the color back in white knuckles. I’ve even heard tell of a crew or two that’s been…

By:Capt. W. Patrick Gordon, M.Sc.​November 1999 “November Oscar” was part of the callsign of a Boeing 747, and this month marks the ten-year anniversary of the “November Oscar incident.” This incident became a landmark case in aviation history because of the fact that, due to a series of judgment calls, an airline captain involved in an incident,…

By:Capt. W. Patrick Gordon, M.Sc.1986(Purchased by Business & Commercial Aviation in 1986 but, to my knowledge, it has never been printed. It’s still one of my favorites because I think it addresses a very real problem.) You would have liked Marty. Everyone did. He was young, ambitious and charming. Someone once said about him, “He…

By:Capt. W. Patrick Gordon, M.Sc.February 2013​Aviation International News “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” Whether Mark Twain or Dudley Warner said it first remains debatable. The point is that the same thing could be said about gray-market charters. I have been in corporate and VIP aviation for decades, and I…

By:Capt. W. Patrick Gordon, M.Sc.(This article was written in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia shortly after the bombing of Libya by American forces in 1986.) When I was twelve years old and my older brother was twenty nine he threw me across his knee and spanked the dickens out of me. Granted, I deserved it. He was…

By:Capt. W. Patrick Gordon, M.Sc.October 2016Abu Dhabi UAE​(Accepted by Al Etihad, the leading Arabic language newspaper in the region. It was to be translated and run in their business section but I don’t know if that was ever done.) You’re a high net worth individual and you really don’t enjoy traveling on airlines anymore. You…