A man has been sentenced to one year in prison for lying about his job experience before working as a commercial pilot in the U.K. for two years.
Craig Butfoy, 49, entered false details and fabricated his experience in his flight logbook so that he could appear more qualified to work for BA CityFlyer, a British Airways regional airline, and former Irish regional airline Stobart Air.
He pleaded guilty to several charges of fraud on Monday and was handed the prison sentence at Snaresbrook Crown Court, in east London, according to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
Butfoy was employed with each airline for one year, from 2016 to 2018, according to The Times of London. During that time, officials at BA CityFlyer reportedly became suspicious of his experience after an incident occurred in Switzerland when he pressed a button that "no qualified pilot would," a source told the news outlet.

He was later investigated by the CAA, when it was found that he had given false information on his résumé and fabricated the details of his flight experience in order to "obtain and retain employment," the authority said. Among those fabrications included false claims that he had flown 1,610 hours as a captain and received a training course certificate. He also falsely stated that he had held a private pilot's license since 1998, according to the Times.
Butfoy reportedly falsified his flight hours while he was working for a previous employer, Hangar 8 Management, according to the Times. That company also operates the same Embraer 190 jets as BA CityFlyer, the news outlet noted.


However, a spokesperson for British Airways maintained that Butfoy was still fully qualified and certified to operate as a pilot, and that the case was related to false information he provided in references during the application process. The airline said passengers were never put in harm.
"The safety of our customers and crew is always our priority, and the fully qualified pilot was suspended and an investigation launched as soon as BA CityFlyer became aware of discrepancies in his employment record," an airline representative told Newsweek in a statement Saturday morning. "At no point was there any risk to customers or colleagues."
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Jonathan Spence, general counsel at the CAA, said earlier this week that Butfoy's prosecution and sentence shows that "offenses of this kind are taken very seriously by the Civil Aviation Authority and the courts," adding that "pilot integrity is at the heart of aviation safety and we will take all steps necessary to maintain that position."
BA CityFlyer is a regional operator that flies aircraft from London City Airport to domestic and European destinations. Stobart Air no longer operates, but was previously owned by Aer Lingus.

NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology, or QueSST, the experimental aircraft, is bringing the agency ever closer to making the quiet commercial supersonic travel over land a reality. The space agency is developing new designs and the technologies needed to limit the noise created by supersonic booms, allowing supersonic aircraft to surpass the speed of sound while flying over populated areas. And soon, the aircraft, which is being developed by Lockheed Martin, is expected to take to the sky for the first time.
The ground noise is expected to be around 60 dB(A), about 1/1000 as loud as current supersonic aircraft. This is achieved by using a long, narrow airframe and canards to keep the shock waves from coalescing.
This week, NASA announced several upcoming milestones, including its plans to fly the X-59 QueSST over select communities to gather information about how the public perceives the quiet noise the X-59 is designed to produce (early 2024). Major ground testing will conclude in early 2022, leading to a target date for the first flight. Next year should bring acoustic validation flights.
The test flights should continue for the next three years, and the results of the community overflights will be delivered to the International Civil Aviation Organization and Federal Aviation Administration in 2027. With that information in hand, regulators will be able to decide if a change should be made in rules that prohibit supersonic flight over land – a decision that would be expected in 2028.
NASA recently completed the first successful wind tunnel test using a small-scale model of X-59 QueSST supersonic aircraft at its Glenn research facility following its assembly and transferral to Texas in December last year. The next test will take place in this year in the supersonic wind tunnels at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, which will allow researchers to compare results from tests of the same small-scale model.

The Air Force C-130 is one of the most versatile aircraft in its arsenal: it can deliver close air support, put out wildfires, and pick up special operators from austere landing strips in the middle of nowhere. In fact, the Hercules showed off its ability to pick up cargo and rapidly take off again recently in the Northeast.
Early Friday afternoon, residents of the famous Massachusetts island vacation town Martha’s Vineyard were surprised to see a C-130 with its four big, loud turboprop engines appear in the sky, land at the Martha’s Vineyard airport, drop its cargo ramp, pick up a motorcycle, then take off again in just about 15 minutes.

“Don’t see that every day,” said local resident Doug Ulwick, who was dining at the nearby Plane View Restaurant at the time and could see the whole affair, according to the Martha’s Vineyard Times, which first reported the story.
Unlike white-threaded sparrows, American goldfinches, or cedar waxwings, the C-130 is not a bird often seen in Martha’s Vineyard. In fact, this particular Hercules had come all the way from Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi, where it is assigned to the 403rd Wing’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron. A spokesperson with the 403rd Wing confirmed the incident.
“The crew picked up a motorcycle that belonged to one of the crew members,” said Lt. Col. Marnee Losurdo, the wing’s Chief of Public Affairs. “Leadership is aware of the incident, which is under investigation. Once the investigation is complete we will provide additional information.”


Better known as the “Hurricane Hunters,” The 53rd Reconnaissance Squadron is a reserve unit unique in the Air Force because it flies straight into fierce storms to collect data that satellites can’t. Their WC-130J aircraft have a suite of special sensors to pick up data on humidity, wind speed, wind direction, temperature, air pressure, dewpoint and other elements which help scientists at the National Hurricane Center figure out where the storm is heading and when it will get there.
Even when hurricane season wraps up in late November, the Hurricane Hunters keep flying through the winter as part of its atmospheric river mission, where they track massive bands of moisture crossing the sky above the Pacific Ocean. Like with the hurricanes, the 53rd tracks these atmospheric rivers for scientists on the West Coast who can use the data the airmen collect to help prepare for flooding or snowfall.
“The big thing is water management,” said Lt. Col. Tobi Baker of the 53rd in a recent press release. “The better the forecast, the more local agencies along the coast are aware of how much water they can use from the reservoirs or how much they need to conserve.”

Now the 2022 hurricane season is on the horizon, but it was unclear exactly what the crew of the 53rd was doing in the Martha’s Vineyard area last week. Losurdo said they were performing “an off-station training mission” before making “an unplanned stop,” but did not share additional details.
Of course, with inflation and gas prices being what they are, it’s hard to blame a crew member for making a quick pitstop to pick up their bike on the way back home. Still, there’s a reason why Air Force Manual 11-202  compels aircrews to “ensure off-station training achieves valid training requirements … and avoids the appearance of government waste or abuse.” That is because aircrews have made far more wasteful pitstops for personal reasons in the past. 
For example, back in 2018, the commander of the Vermont Air National Guard was booted from his job after using an F-16 fighter jet to fly to Washington D.C. for an interstate booty call. Even further back, in 2006 two airmen from the New York Air National Guard pleaded guilty to narcotics charges after smuggling more than 200,000 pills of Ecstasy from Germany aboard their C-5 Galaxy cargo jet.

Besides the financial cost of fuel, there is always the safety risk of something going wrong during an unauthorized personal flight. As bad as the headlines are after an airplane crash, imagine how much worse it would be if that happened during an interstate booty call. Still, if the description of the motorcycle is accurate, it could be a ride worth getting in some hot water for.
“I saw a vintage BMW motorcycle. I used to own old vintage BMW motorcycles, so that’s how I know,” Tristan Israel, a local county commissioner who was also eating lunch at the Plane View Restaurant, told The Martha’s Vineyard Times. Israel guessed it was pre-1972 based on the logo. 
“I was eating next to the window,” he added. “We looked out and we saw the plane. We saw people walking a vintage motorcycle up to the plane.

Hulu is presenting Red Bull’s latest death-defying aerial stunt as the exclusive U.S. livestreaming partner. The opportunistic rights pickup shows how Disney is hunting for new head-turning opportunities to help Hulu stand out in the crowded streaming market.
In Red Bull’s Plane Swap event, set for Sunday, April 24, skydivers and pilots Luke Aikins and Andy Farrington — each piloting single-seat Cessna aircrafts to 14,000 feet in the skies over Arizona — will put their planes into a vertical nosedive. They’ll then jump out in midair at 140 mph (leaving the cockpits empty) and attempt to skydive into each other’s planes as they hurtle toward the ground.
The never-before-attempted Plane Swap stunt will be livestreamed on Hulu beginning at 4 p.m. PT on April 24. Hulu is the exclusive streaming partner of Plane Swap in the U.S. (available to all subscribers) and Red Bull TV is the broadcast platform for rest of the world. On Hulu, the event also will be available to watch on-demand starting the next day.

Plane Swap is the latest in a series of live news and sports programing for Hulu’s on-demand subscribers. Past events on the streamer have included Lollapalooza 2021, the New Year’s Eve Ball Drop and 75 live NHL games.
The Plane Swap stunt required the development of a purpose-built airbrake system installed on the aircrafts’ belly, designed to control aerodynamic stability. Aikins and Farrington worked with aeronautical engineer Dr. Paulo Iscold, who served as lead engineer on the project. Once engaged, the airbrakes will ensure the planes maintain a relatively controlled terminal velocity in nosedive that closely matches the speed of the skydivers’ descent.
The Plane Swap concept is Aikins’ brainchild, inspired by a photo he saw in an aviation magazine in the ’90s. As a professional skydiver, he’s made more than 21,000 jumps and served as the skydiving consultant on the Red Bull Stratos mission (where Felix Baumgartner jumped from a record-setting altitude of 127,852 feet in 2012). Aikins also performed the first-ever skydive without a parachute on live TV (in 2016) and developed Red Bull Aces, the world’s first wingsuit slalom competition that began in 2014. Farrington, meanwhile, boasts more than 27,000 skydives himself. The two are cousins who live together on a 40-acre property in Washington State.
“Plane Swap is the natural progression and culmination of my life’s work as a professional, both in the air as a pilot and skydiver and on the ground as an innovator,” Aikins said in a statement. “It’s the pinnacle of my career, and my goal is to inspire the world and show that anything is possible.”

The world’s biggest aircraft, the Antonov-225 cargo plane, was destroyed by Russian forces while it was under repair at an airfield in Gostomel near Kyiv, according to Ukraine’s state-run Ukroboronprom. 
Restoration of the aircraft, known as Mriya, will take more than five years at a cost of over $3 billion following the attack, Ukroboronprom said in a statement dated Sunday, adding that it aimed to ensure Russia covers the costs.
“Russia has hit the Mriya as a symbol of Ukraine’s aviation capabilities,” the company said. 

Following Russia’s initiation of military operations in neighbouring Ukraine on the morning of February 24, countries across the Western world as well as Japan have taken a range of punitive measures against Moscow ranging from harsh economic sanctions to seizing Russian civilian shipping in international waters. It was revealed on February 27 that armaments set to be dispatched to the Ukrainian armed forces from Europe as part of EU funded aid included fighter aircraft, and would be delivered entirely through Poland. Ukraine’s fighter fleet has taken extreme losses in the conflict’s first 72 hours, a notable early sign of which was the decision of a Su-27 pilot to fleet to Romania on the first day. Two of Ukraine’s 14 highly prized Su-24 strike fighters were also reportedly shot down in the conflict’s initial hours. Airfield footage subsequently showed major losses suffered by Ukrainian MiG-29 fighters units to Russian cruise missile strikes, while at least one Su-27 has been lost to friendly fire. Ukrainian air defences were reportedly destroyed within 2-3 hours of the conflict’s outbreak, with Russian sources reporting in the early hours of February 28 that complete air superiority over Ukraine had been achieved. 

While the Ukrainian Air Force would struggle to integrate Western built fighters, which was one cause for hesitancy when it was suggested that U.S. military surplus fighters be donated over the past eight years, European countries formerly in the Soviet-aligned Warsaw Pact continue to deploy Soviet-built fighters. While the Romanian Air Force’s MiG-21 and Polish Air Force’s Su-22 jets are older designs that Ukraine does not itself field, the MiG-29 relied on heavily by Ukraine is deployed by Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia with some reports indicating that units remain in the reserves of other states such as Hungary. The MiG-29 is a lighter and lower end design than the Su-27 or Su-24, but was more widely exported by the Soviet Union hence why it is used in Eastern Europe. Both European states and Ukraine rely on effectively obsolete 1980s variants of the fighters, however, which are technologically decades behind frontline jets deployed by Russia.. 

Sending MiG-29s to Ukraine remains highly questionable for a number of reasons. It is not altogether clear how the aircraft would enter the country, whether having European personnel fly them in could expose them to a high risk of being shot down by Russian aircraft, or whether Ukrainian pilots will be dispatched to Poland to fly them. Furthermore, with Ukraine’s airbases having been largely destroyed, even the MiG-29’s much famed ability to operate from short runways would be seriously tested. The possibility of escalation would likely be deemed too great, however, if MiG-29s were to fly combat sorties from airfields in Poland itself, as this would potentially expose Poland to airstrikes. Russian state media outlets notably highlighted that more capable Su-27 heavyweight fighters could also be delivered, although this appears to be an error since Ukraine is the only operator of the class in Europe and, other than two Su-27s in the United States acquired from Belarus for testing in the 1990s, no Western-aligned countries currently deploy it. It remains possible that only a token number of MiGs will be donated as a means of bolstering Ukrainian morale, and that these will come exclusively from Poland which has taken one of the most hardline positions against Russia within Europe.

Unconfirmed reports of an ace Ukrainian fighter pilot have gone viral, with social media users dubbing the fighter the “Ghost of Kyiv.”
Supposedly downing as many as six Russian planes in the first day of combat, the Ghost of Kyiv — and their MiG-29 Fulcrum — quickly became a folk hero in a war breathlessly watched online.
According to one widely circulated post, the Ghost of Kyiv is believed to have shot down four Russian fighter jets — two Su-35 Flankers, one Su-27 Flanker and one MiG-29 Fulcrum — as well as two ground-attack aircraft, so-called Su-25 Frogfoots.
Regardless, many on social media argued the legend of an ace fighter pilot holding off the Russian advance was useful in its own right.

 Jared Isaacman, the billionaire entrepreneur who led the first all-private-citizen crew to orbit in September, has commissioned three additional spaceflight missions in what amounts to a privately funded space program with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Like NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs at the dawn of the Space Age, the flights — dubbed Polaris, for the North Star — will seek to systematically chart new territory in bold, groundbreaking missions. In doing so, they would dramatically accelerate the progress of commercial spaceflight in what has become a new era of exploration, where private companies — and people — are claiming the rarefied territory that was once the exclusive domain of governments.
The first flight, which could come by the end of the year, will aim to send a crew of four farther than any other human spaceflight in 50 years and feature the first private-citizen spacewalk, Isaacman said in an exclusive interview with The Washington Post. The second flight also would be aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, the vehicle that NASA now relies on to fly astronauts to the International Space Station.

The third flight in the series, however, would be the first crewed mission of the next-generation Starship spacecraft, now under development by SpaceX and which NASA intends to use to land astronauts on the moon. Last year, Isaacman, the founder and CEO of Shift4, a payment processing company, funded what was called the Inspiration4 mission. That flight sent Isaacman and three other private citizens — strangers until they were chosen for the mission — into orbit for three days in a flight that raised more than $240 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
The flight reached an altitude of 367 miles, higher than the Hubble Space Telescope and most space shuttle flights, and was operated entirely by SpaceX, which trained the crew, provided their spacesuits, kept them alive in orbit and then plucked them from the Gulf of Mexico after they returned to Earth. With NASA watching from the sidelines, it was yet another sign of the erosion of government’s long-held monopoly on human spaceflight, as private companies become more capable and daring.


After the Inspiration4 flight, Isaacman hinted there might be more to come, saying, “That was a heck of a ride for us, and we’re just getting started.”

In the interview with The Post, Isaacman said that he had been discussing the Polaris program with SpaceX before the Inspiration4 mission. After the Inspiration4 flight, he said, he was awed by the wonder of space travel and eager to go again. But he also had doubts about whether he should continue the private spaceflights because the Inspiration4 mission, which was chronicled in a Netflix series, had successfully completed so many milestones. And he feared he wouldn’t be able to break new ground.
“I love space, and I would definitely want to take an opportunity to go back,” said Isaacman, who is also an aviation enthusiast and highly skilled jet pilot. “I just also felt like we got a lot of things done with Inspiration4, and I never wanted to potentially take away from that unless it could make a really good impact on the world.”

He didn’t want to proceed until he was convinced that the additional flights would “serve the bigger purpose of opening up space for everyone and making humankind a multiplanetary species and, ideally, have a benefit for the things we’re trying to accomplish back here on Earth.”
Isaacman and SpaceX did not disclose how much he was paying for the flights, though the figure could easily be several hundred million dollars. He also wouldn’t say exactly how much the Inspiration4 mission cost, except that the price was less than $200 million.
In addition to the first commercial spacewalk, Isaacman said the first Polaris mission would endeavor “to go farther than anyone’s gone since we last walked on the moon — in the highest Earth orbit that anyone’s ever flown.” The record was set in 1966 by the Gemini 11 crew, which flew to 853 miles, the highest altitude for any non-lunar crewed mission, according to NASA.
The flight, which would take off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, would require a license from the Federal Aviation Administration. But the FAA considers only the safety of people and property on the ground in granting such approval and not the risks their activities in space might pose to the crew.


The crew would also test SpaceX’s Starlink laser-based satellite communications technology in space. While Starlink satellites now beam Internet signals to rural areas on Earth, SpaceX is hoping to use the system for human spaceflight missions to the moon and Mars. The program would also collaborate with several university and research institutions, including the University of Colorado at Boulder, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Isaacman said the first mission would also conduct a study before and after the spacewalk to test how people cope with decompression sickness and why it varies. The crew would also gather data on how radiation affects the human body and how microgravity changes the structure of astronauts’ brains and eyes.
As private companies erode government’s hold on space travel, NASA looks to open a new frontier
Isaacman will be the commander of the first Polaris flight, known as Polaris Dawn. He’ll be joined by Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former Air Force pilot who served as the mission director for Inspiration4, and two SpaceX lead operation engineers, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, who help prepare astronauts for flights on the company’s Dragon spacecraft. The four got to know one another during the Inspiration4 mission and have “a foundation of trust they can build upon as they undertake the challenges of this mission,” the crew said in a statement.

Menon is married to Anil Menon, SpaceX’s first flight surgeon, who was recently selected by NASA to join its astronaut corps. When the couple told their 4-year-old son that Anil Menon was going to be a NASA astronaut, “the first words out of his mouth were, ‘Mama, when are you going to become an astronaut?' ” Anna Menon said in an interview.
A few weeks later, Isaacman asked her to join the Polaris crew, and now she will likely reach space before her husband.
In addition to setting an altitude record, the Polaris Dawn crew is also aiming to perform a spacewalk, which would be a first for an all-private-citizen spaceflight. Since the Dragon capsule doesn’t have an airlock, the crew would have to put on pressurized spacesuits and slowly depressurize the cabin before opening the hatch at the top of the capsule. Then they could climb outside to float in space, while being tethered to the spacecraft.


Isaacman said it had not yet been decided whether everyone would get the chance to venture outside and that it was one of many details of the operation that are still being worked out. To perform the spacewalk, SpaceX is developing more advanced spacesuits that would keep the astronauts safe in the vacuum of space.


The spacewalk would add an additional layer of difficultly and risk to an endeavor already fraught with danger. NASA astronauts spend months training for their spacewalks on the International Space Station, practicing underwater in a massive pool at the Johnson Space Center in Houston to simulate the weightless environment of space. Stepping outside the space station is considered among the most dangerous activities an astronaut can undertake, and it’s never before been attempted by nonprofessional astronauts.
Still, the Polaris crew said they were confident that they could harness NASA’s experience and that SpaceX would be able to ensure their safety on what are known as extravehicular activities, or EVAs.


But if Isaacman and his crew were to fly in it first, that would mark a fundamental shift in human spaceflight. Usually, NASA relies on its most seasoned astronauts for the first crewed test flights of new rockets. On the first human flight of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, for example, veteran NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley were the first to test it out.
Isaacman said that Starship will fly many times before the first crewed flight. “I expect in good SpaceX fashion, they’re going to do an awful lot of flights and get a lot of data before the first human beings get on board that vehicle,” he said.
Having a private-citizen crew be the first to fly Starship is not a slight to NASA, Isaacman said, but rather another sign of how space exploration is undergoing a fundamental shift.
“NASA has paved the way for everyone — just to be immensely clear on that,” Isaacman said. “We’re all here today because of their accomplishments and sacrifices from so long ago. But what we’re seeing here is this is not exclusive to NASA. There is a ton of private money that’s trying to deliver on the dream that SpaceX has.”

The Russian military has quietly tested new ways of defeating Ukrainian air defense systems using Soviet-era AN-2 Colt biplanes.
It is worth mentioning that AN-2 is archaic agricultural aircraft that first flew in 1947, as the Soviet Union was rebuilding after the tumult of World War II.
The AN-2 is one of the largest single-engine biplanes ever produced. It was particularly prized for its versatility and extraordinary slow-flight, short takeoff, and landing capabilities. The AN-2 will allow simulating a breakthrough of a helicopter group or attack drones.
Russian forces reportedly are training to use antiquated biplanes as decoys to fly them to the front lines to draw out Ukrainian air defenses. Recent videos posted to social media have shown almost a dozen AN-2 aircraft in a close formation during an exercise in Russia’s border areas with Ukraine.

A similar approach was used during the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Azerbaijani military has converted an An-2 airplane into an unmanned aerial vehicle. Remote-control systems were taken the place of a human pilot in the cockpit of an airplane, replacing the crew with a kit that takes just a short time to install.
​According to a recent intelligence assessment, Russia has now assembled 70% of the military personnel and weapons on Ukraine’s borders he would need for a full-scale invasion of the country.