Seventy-eight years ago today, on October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1, and so today felt like the right time to break the silence that had fallen on this newsletter for the past five months, a result of the many changes in the editor’s stage of life that perhaps will find some reflection on these pages in the months ahead.
This edition includes an “annual report” following the 2025 Flight Test Safety Workshop, a regular feature that I hope will inform readers of the many things accomplished by the Flight Test Safety Committee, its many members, sister organizations, and subcommittees. Sharing this information is one of the most fundamental reasons this newsletter exists. I hope you print it out and put it in your lunchroom, or use a magnet to hang it on your whiteboard. I hope you share it with others in your organization that don’t know about it.
Inside this edition you will also find what one reader called a “meditation.” I don’t think I was meditating when I wrote it, so in that sense I disagree. But the fact that I disagree is, ironically, a reflection on the content of the column. Several things like a video I watched and a mammoth paper about a reverend is what prompted the set of observations, puns, opinions and editorial, which I hope will also elicit a laugh or a chuckle, as it did for early readers.
In this edition, I break from an October routine that highlights scary things like Frankenstein airplanes, colorful things like orange wire and flight suits, and all the other signs that a new season has arrived in the Northern hemisphere. For those who are reading carefully, I do think you will see that I wove in at least one of the classic illustrations, and for those who decide to dig into the archives, Turbo’s past podcasts cover the spooky elements well. And if you don’t know about the podcast, I hope you read to the end of this month’s newsletter.
Please do send your disagreements, ideas, and suggestions to the editor, or talk about them during your coffee break.
Download Flight Test Safety Fact, 25-10.