I wrote about so many accidents during my 30-plus year aviation journalism career that I can hardly stomach the feeding frenzy of “analysis” following the DCA accident on Wednesday. Least of all President Trump’s distressing press conference not even 12 hours after the accident. Still, if I learned anything during my career, it’s to keep […]
After an extensive trial, the University of North Dakota’s flight school has dropped Swift UL94 fuel and resumed use of 100LL. The school said ongoing maintenance monitoring of aircraft using UL94—almost exclusively Lycoming-powered Piper Archers and Seminoles—resulted in measurable exhaust valve recession. The school made the switch back to 100LL on Oct. 27. Partly because […]
At the end of his legendary career, famed aviation pioneer Jimmy Doolittle titled his autobiography, “I Could Never Be So Lucky Again.” From down here in the flatlands of 21st century general aviation, Doolittle’s Olympian perch is a smudge on the horizon, but I nonetheless have mustered the unmitigated temerity to steal his idea and […]
Time can make all the difference. Sometimes it’s 30 seconds, or two weeks, or the 623 long days it took NASA to put Apollo back on track after a deadly fire. For my purposes here, it’s three years and a few months. That’s the time that passed between Cirrus just being one of those aviation […]
Last week, a friend texted me with a question: He had found a nice restored Cub, but like so many J-3s, it didn’t have an electrical system. It had a C-85 upgrade with the accessory case that can’t be converted to electric start. So hand propping would be the only option. “What do you think […]
Last week, 17 hydrogen balloons departed Albuquerque in the Gordon Bennett gas balloon for points east. In this interview, AVweb’s Paul Bertorelli talked to two pilots who flew the race, eventually landing in Georgia just west of Savannah. Noah Forden and Brenda Cowlishaw finished fourth, with a distance of 1382 miles in 65 hours. Note: […]
Don’t take counsel of your fears, goes the phrase, variously described as of religious or military origin. Its meaning is don’t be captive of that which frightens you and it is, if nothing else, a double-bladed axe. Fear can be both a healthy thing or a numbing source of paralysis or maybe something between. This […]
Last spring, Richard McSpadden talked me off a ledge of sorts. Now, following his death in a crash on Sunday, I wonder if I’m not back out on it. I had called him to discuss some analytical work I was doing on comparing outcomes in emergency landings, but the conversation soon drifted to what I […]
While I was researching this week’s video on aviation’s role in greenhouse gas emissions—and especially SAF—one phrase kept recurring in my overstimulated brain: window dressing, albeit sincere window dressing. On the light side of general aviation, the attitude is that the warming planet thing doesn’t really exist, so let’s not even talk about it. […]
With weather disasters lined up like airliners on final to LaGuardia, news on climate change is a constant. And with aviation the most energy-intensive form of mass transportation, it’s in the crosshairs as an emitter of greenhouse gas. In this video, AVweb’s Paul Bertorelli examines the role of electric airplanes and, more importantly, sustainable aviation […]
