Commentary

OnWednesday of this week, Miami International’s ASR-9 approach control radar took a directlightning strike and was out of service for more than three hours. Most of the agenciesand people involved in moving airplanes rolled up their sleeves and went to work.Everyone, that is, except the U.S. Customs Service. The approach controllers, crippled without their own […]

“Hey,Mike! Looks like there may be a problem with Continental crankshafts.” I looked up from my Makita, with which I’d been reinstalling inspection plates at theend of a grueling month-long annual on my Cessna 310. It was Monday April 5th, if memoryserves, and the voice from the open door at the top of the stairs […]

Doctor Warren Silberman took on a big job last year when heassumed the reins of the Civil Aeromedical Institute (CAMI), which is responsible forall FAA Airman Medical Certification. The place was a mess of paperwork with over 50,000medical certificate applications caught up in the quagmire. Silberman quickly reduced thatbacklog to 10,000 medicals, and began to […]

Liz Im partial to Mooneys, I guess I need to admit that straight up. I own a 1966Mooney M20E, one of the short-bodied speedster models. My little bird “Mike”cruises along at a calm-wind 140-plus knots and drinks a mere 10 gallons of avgas perhour. I like Mike. I transitioned to my 200-hp, complex M20E “Super […]

Top 10 Aviation News Stories | Awardsof Distinction | Final Flights The Top 10 Aviation News Stories Of 1998 10.  Viagra These little blue pills (at least that’s the color we’re told they are…) will appear on many 1998 retrospective lists. Beyond the huge amount of coverage the new “erectile-dysfunction” drug has received in the […]

The aircraft magneto is a cursed thing. Its technology seemingly dates to the discovery of fire, every engine needs at leasttwo and on a dark and stormy night over the Appalachians, the last thing you want to thinkabout is how many fragile moving parts are whirling around inside a mag at the speed ofheat. But […]

It was a glorious July day in Northwest Indiana. I woke with the sun, eager to be on my mission — actually a dual mission that day. I was to complete my first solo cross country flight AND take my private pilot written test at the South Bend GADO. They were written tests in those […]

This is a great time for NASA. It’s our 40th anniversary. Yesterday morning, we launched Deep Space One, our first electric propulsion probe; we will turn on that electric engine in about two weeks. In about a month, the first piece of the International Space Station will be launched. And in just five days now […]

NOTE: You can listen to a full-lengthRealAudio feed of Dan Goldin’s speech here on AVweb, and also read the prepared text furnished by NASA. Have you ever listened to any of AVweb’s audio streams?Well, this is the time. NASA administrator Dan Goldin addressed the 1998 AOPA conventionin Palm Springs, California on Saturday and had the […]