Friday, February 20, 2009

Flying in the Dark


Split screen pilot view of an F-16 landing Aspen Colorado at night. On the right, the normal view. On the left, the FLIR (forward looking infrared) view. Due to immediately surrounding terrain, commercial night operations into Aspen require special aircraft and aircrew certification. The online NTSB accident database lists 34 fatal crashes at Aspen since 1962, most of them general aviation.