Flight International

• One of the more strange stories was from someone who claimed he had been in contact with aliens since he was only 7. He said he had been visited twice and had witnessed a UFO being shot down. Then he tried to arrange a meeting between one of the aliens called Algar and the British Government. But later told them that Algar had been killed by the rest of the aliens before the meeting could take place.
  
• One spotting in Hastings, East Sussex in 1999 told of  "A UFO that looked like a helicopter? It hovered and then shot off into the distance. It had red flashing lights!"( i wonder what that could be!?.
To find out some interesting stories for yourself, look at the MOD website

To celebrate 100 years of publishing, Flight has been compiling a aviation survey to establish the best moment,person, engine, civil aircraft and military aircraft of the past 100 years.

This list has not been without controversy, springing a fierce debate on whether the concorde can be bettered, whether landing on the moon beats the first unmanned flight, and so on and so forth...

The Roman Catholic priest who took flight by tying himself to a chair with hundreds of helium balloons has gone missing off the coast of Brazil.

White boy rapping and aviation has traditionally gone together like toothpaste and orange juice, but the recent Terminal 5 chaos has prompted a guy to get all satirical, and release the “Terminal 5” song:

Similar to a Flight of the Conchords ditty, this satirical view (also produced by a Kiwi man) is quite humorous, and shows how the at least some people can laugh about the travel chaos. If they haven’t got there bags auctioned off that is!

*Hats off to Goose on AirSpace for the link.

Is it a bird, is it a plane….is it there at all….? Or could it be just another April’s Fool…?

Never a company that shies away from publicity, Ryanair attempted to capitalise on the loving feeling of Valentine’s Day with a “snogathon” at Leicester Square in Central London.

If you can't bear to leave the moggy at home, take him with you when you fly and get him to give you some unique feedback to you landing prowess.

If you’re Turkey's World Focus Airlines and you are going to rebrand your company to a name like ‘Ank Air’, you maybe should give the logo design a little more thought:

Can you think of anymore stupid rebranding exercises. Have your say on AirSpace

After last summer's furore surrounding Kyla Ebbert, scantily clad women became the hot topic for Southwest airlines. And now it has re-appeared for a wholly different reason.

Newts have been causing a bit of a stir in Samlesbury, where aerospace giant BAE Systems are about to begin work on a £100 million business park which will include the development of four office blocks.

In this time of darkness and cold thoughts often wander to warmer climes, whether booking your summer holidays, or for the more impatient, shunning the gloves for the swimming shorts and immediately head to the Mediterranean.

One such travel company that has cleverly plaayed on this feeling is Dutch company X-travel, who have produced this funny animation of a Boeing 737 literally landing in the sea:

If only this could happen, i'll be on it tommorow...coupled with a dingy and some swimming trunks. Anything to get out of this cold!!

Here is a photograph of Terminal 4 at Madrid Barajas Airport by Richard Rogers and Architects. It's the final picture in a slideshow showing a sample of works of art as part of at the top ten exhibitions around the world.

This year Flightglobal has seen our blogging output increase significantly, both in terms of number and in scope.

Since June, Flightglobal's community site AirSpace has been awash with controversy, exclusives and a sprinkling of light banter to match. Here are some of the highlights.

This year has been full of dramatic incident and exclusive stories, many of which have been accompanied with images. Here is the story of the year in pictures.

From crashes to low flying to first flights, this year has been packed full of incident, much of which has been captured on video. Here is a top ten list of the most popular:

Here's the Ryanair "charity" calendar in full...

We managed to get hold of this video of a couple of girls taking a ride in an aircraft and the pilot took them to zero g manoeuvre.

If you're scared of flying you could of course avoid it or you could conquer your fears and take a course, but not a course of valium.

Today our colleagues at Air Transport Intelligence were surprised to get a rather large delivery:

It seems that Lewis Hamilton isn't the only disappointed English motorsport star this autumn with Mike Mangold pipping leader Paul Bonhomme to the Red Bull Air Race title.

A close fought contest culminated in Mangold winning the title due better results in elimination rounds , highlighting a competition that has really come to life this season.

Flightglobal covered the air race while in London, while we have highlights of the 2007 campaign on our AirSpace gallery.

Trawling the newspapers this morning I discovered that somewhere out there, a little Westie Stanley travels about, not on four legs but a makeshift Spitfire.

When I heard about an album inspired by the sound of aviation I thought it would be awful and amateurish but I was pleasantly surprised.

Do you know your Riga from your Katowice? Then test your knowledge on this new game from Lufthansa!

Here at the blogathon we have been talking about the stranger names and acronyms that dictate each industry? My personal favourite for aviation has to be a grommet,although all day I have been explaining to people that it isn't a dog in the animation, but that beautiful little invention that help link bolts together ( I know, really sexy stuff).

A big thank you for our colleague at Travolution for this one, who found this wonderful gadget that allows you to mercilessly attack your colleagues that don't offer to make the next tea round.

Have you ever wondered what journalists do when grouped together in the same room? Do they just fight like banshees over the latest press release, or hug their Blackberries for the latest inspirational gossip? Well neither in fact, as today we are uniting in aid of the blogging world.

To set the scene a little, journalists within our parent company Reed Business are uniting to produce a day of blogging wonderment, both for charitable causes and to highlight the latest stories from aviation and beyond.

So stick around and we will show you what's going on in the world...well a tiny bit of it anyway.

Men in motion get lost because men on the move won't ask for directions, or so the saying goes.

With Rockwell Collins' new ParaNew GPS however, males, at least those hanging on a parachute, will be able to find their way without ever asking.

The avionics maker says the new system, which consists of a miniature flight management system and GPS receiver integrated into a helmet with a small Head-Up display, will help with situational awareness and allow the parachuter to find the right landing zone. Failing that, he'll be able to plop down at a proper alternate.

There are times when working in the Flight office can seem like The Weakest Link quiz show; each journalist trying to outscore the other with their aviation know-how!

Nothing gets an aviation journalist going like discussing of aircraft gone by. With this in mind, and because we know how much people love to reminisce, we have created an area designated to the Mecca of all things historical, the aviation museum.

Under the cover of a pseudonym, to protect my friends and family from repercussions and recriminations - okay, embarrassment - I participate in a forum for those like me who love cancelled and secret aircraft projects. It's www.secretprojects.co.uk, and it is a very cool site. They have just discovered Flight's online archive, which went live earlier today. The reaction? To quote one: "Wow! This is an incredible resource." And it is. Searchable and downloadable pdfs of hundreds of past issues of Flight. There are gaps, which are to be filled in over the coming weeks, but what is there is amazing.

Bored? Got that Friday feeling?Then why not try throwing a paper plane out of a window?

To celebrate the release of Flight Simulator X, Microsoft have released a quirky game that challenges you to see how far you can throw an imaginary paper airplane.

By using your mouse alone, you can attempt to throw the airplane as far as possible, causing the competitive souls within Flight to argue over the best throwing "technique".

Our current champion is Online Editor Michael Targett,who threw an impressive (but i still call lucky) throw of 38.9 Meters. He wanted to round it up to 40 but as everybody knows, in life, every bit of length counts.

Let us know how far you can get?