Search Results for: mexico

Henry Kisor was born August 17, 1940, inRidgewood, N.J. Age three brought his first experience in the cockpit of a TBF Avenger,and a bout with meningitis that would take away his ability to hear. Henry’s parentstaught him to read and to read lips and to find his place in a hearing world. He earned aB.A. […]

Elbert Rutan was born in Dinuba, Calif., inJune 1943. After receiving a B.S. in aeronautical engineering from Cal Poly, he worked forthe U. S. Air Force as a Flight Test Project Engineer at Edwards AFB, Calif., until 1972.After two years designing and developing the Bede BD-J5 he formed RAF, the Rutan AircraftFactory. For the next […]

I am not proud of this all-too-true story.It demonstrates incredible stupidity and poor judgment on my part, and it is the closest Ishall ever come to dying without doing so. I have told the story to only a very smallhandful of people, and I am certain that some of those probably don’t believe it, as […]

The constant-speed version of the bootstrap approach isin some ways less complicated than the fixed-pitch version. Preliminary flight tests forconstant-speed airplanes (to obtain some of the nine “Bootstrap Data Plate”numbers) require only glides, no climbs. And partial-throttle operations forconstant-speed airplanes are automatically included from the get-go. On the other hand, the constant-speed propeller thrust model […]

Evelyn “Bobbi” Trout was born onJanuary 7, 1906, in Greenup, Ill. She saw her first airplane at age 12 and knew right awaythat she wanted to fly. In 1920, the family moved to Los Angeles and everyone worked atthe family’s “filling station.” On December 27, 1922, one of her customersoffered her a ride in his […]

Wayne Handley was born March 26, 1939, in Carmel, Calif.After a career in Naval aviation, he built a successful crop dusting business in Salinas,Calif. In 1983, after years of performing for unappreciative grapes and lettuce, hedecided to enter the International Aerobatic Club competition. Finishing 20th out of 21was humbling enough to make him serious about […]

NASAGives Students A Taste Of Space Flight — 30 Seconds At A Time The engines are screaming at full power as I pullmyself up off the floor against the 1.8 Gs and manage to look out the sidewindow. What I see is not the typical view from a four-engine transport categoryaircraft: the starboard wing with […]

Under atranslucent blue bowl of desert sky, the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park sprawls over600,000 acres of mountains, desert, and oasis canyons. Located near the California-Mexicoborder, approximately 50 nm northeast of San Diego and 40 nm north of Mexico, this is thelargest State Park in the contiguous U.S. Although a desert now, from the air the […]

I don’t fly balloons. Idid fly balloons, but I gave it up. Not because it isn’t a lot of fun, because it is. Idon’t fly balloons because, like flying flingwings, it is too much work for a lazy guylike me. With an airplane, you take off, point it where you want to go, trim it […]

The author in a moment of self-assessment following his first taildragger lesson in the Citabria. We tricycle-gear drivers don’t know jack about flying. Tricycle gear makes nearly every landing a greaser. (Well, if you’ve ever seen one ofmine, we’ll call every landing “survivable.”) And, once we’ve learned to fly, wenever much worry “whence the wind.” […]