Search Results for: vfr

I was reading a description of a pilot’s actions as he was programming his GPS the other day. It didn’t take me long to get lost. Press this button, go to that page, turn this dial. Pretty soon I found myself wondering, “Who’s flying the airplane during all this?” It sure seemed complicated.I’m sure it […]

The tragedy played perfectly into Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s long-standing belief that GA traffic should be banned over his city’s downtown area and he wasted little time exploiting it. “Remember: a single- or two-engine plane can kill as many people as possible if they want to,” he told reporters in a news conference filled with […]

After about 36 hours of defending general aviation in the wake of the Cory Lidle crash on Wednesday, AOPA President Phil Boyer found something good to say about the FAA’s imposition of flight restrictions in the narrow East River VFR corridor from which Lidle and his instructor Tyler Stanger strayed when Lidle’s Cirrus SR20 hit […]

Clear day view, East River corridor at right The pilots in the Cirrus had reportedly been on a sightseeing flight in the area. They had taken off from Teterboro Airport, six miles west of New York, in nearby New Jersey, just 23 minutes before the crash. Weather indicated a ceiling at 1500, with visibility 8 […]

One day before Eclipse earned its full type certificate, Adam Aircraft received an amended FAA type certificate for its all-composite A500 pressurized centerline-thrust piston twin. The six-seat Adam A500 was originally type certificated in May 2005, but that approval came with several limitations. Now, those limitations have been removed and the A500 becomes the first […]

Even while it was basking in the commendable glow of finally earning full FAA type certification for its Eclipse 500 VLJ on Sept. 30, Eclipse Aviation faced the daunting prospect of transforming itself from a product development company into one that actually has to manufacture that product. The company, saying it used “technologies and business […]

During this year’s repositioning of the Pilot’s Lounge from the virtual airport to the EAA convention at Oshkosh, many of our regulars and visitors again partook of a rather cynical variation of the traditional form of recreation-at-the-airport-when-we’re-not-flying: watching arriving aircraft to see stupid pilot tricks.Sadly, we saw a bunch.While the majority of arriving pilots demonstrated […]

COLUMNS Probable Cause #16: Peer-PressurizedA VFR-only Bonanza pilot succumbs to peer pressure and launches into marginal conditions.

This article originally appeared in Aviation Safety, July 2004. Pilots must often deal with a wide range of competing emotions and pressures when faced with less-than-ideal conditions for a planned flight. These can range from doubts about one’s skills and proficiency for the planned flight, to mechanical problems with the aircraft and to adverse weather. […]

AOPA President Phil Boyer says there’s not much room for general aviation in NASA’s and the FAA’s vision of future air travel. The so-called Next Generation Air Transportation System is geared toward commercial carriers and heaps expense on GA while diminishing its access. “But in this nightmare of the future, GA would lose access to […]