Aviation questions, answered.
Answers to the things people look up after something goes over, from how aircraft fly to the history and codes behind them. Every number here names its source.
These pages are the reading half of the sky, the first stage of this site. Each follows a question or a distinct piece of aircraft history, with sources beside the claims they support.
The sourcing rule matters more than it sounds. Plenty of aviation writing repeats numbers nobody can trace. Here, figures name the regulator, manufacturer, scientific body or museum that publishes them. Where the familiar answer lacks a traceable source, the page explains that limit.
How aircraft fly
The aircraft
- The main types of aircraft
- A short history of the Spitfire
- The Lockheed Constellation
- Concorde: why it stopped and where it survives
- Widest, heaviest and biggest for passengers
- What each part of an aircraft does
- What a cockpit is
- Why planes are white
- Why planes leave white trails
The ground
- How runway numbers work
- Airport codes
- The aerodrome reference code
- Where to start plane spotting
- Squawk codes
Read them in any order. When you've finished, your aircraft picks up where these leave off: the photograph, and what can be done with it.