Commentary

In Brainteaser Quiz #165, I asked, “What certificated general aviation (GA) pilot (preferably living, but that’s not a deal breaker) should be the next president of the United States?” No actual politicians were eligible for consideration. Three unnamed pols attempted to sneak into our caucus but were unmasked and will be forced to stand atop […]

[AVweb‘s reprint of Dick’s memoir began with the Introduction.] Starting the B-25’s engines was a lot easier because of our training in the T-6; but if we thought the sound of an R-1340 being fired up was music to our ears, the R-2600 produced an aeronautical symphony when all 14 cylinders got together. It was […]

[AVweb‘s reprint of Dick’s memoir began with the Introduction.] The B-25 was one of a long line of North American Aviation’s highly successful military aircraft: T-6, P-51, B-45, F-86, F-100, T-28, A-5, XB-70 and the B-1, still in operation. It’s worth noting that the B-25 holds the unique distinction of being the only American military […]

In Brainteaser Quiz #163, I asked, “What is the dumbest phraseology you routinely hear on CTAF?” CTAF means Common Traffic Advisory Frequency, the unsupervised, pilot-to-pilot, radio forum used when operating at airports without control towers. I asked the question because, as a flight instructor, I spend hours listening to all sorts of garbage on the […]

[AVweb‘s reprint of Dick’s memoir began with the Introduction.] If the United States had offered an award in 1893 for the fastest-growing city in the country, Enid, Okla., would surely have been the winner. Located 65 miles north of Oklahoma City, Enid was one of the small towns overwhelmed by the thundering herd of settlers […]

We received about 200 responses to Brainteaser #162’s essay question: Now that ICAO has eliminated “ramp” from the aviation lexicon, what do we call the kid who runs the fuel truck, since we can no longer use the term “ramp rat?” In scouring the responses, we eliminated all names to protect senders from apron personnel […]

[AVweb‘s reprint of Dick’s memoir began with the Introduction.] A considerable amount of classroom time was devoted to aerial navigation, including the resolution of wind drift and other problems on the two-sided E6B computer: Compared to contemporary electronic magic, the term “computer” is lost on the E6B, but it did the job for us more […]

[AVweb‘s reprint of Dick’s memoir began with the Introduction.] The Piper PA-18 was our introduction to flight training. It was not only a rag-wing airplane, it was a rag-everything airplane: Fabric stretched over steel tubing on all the surfaces except the engine cowling. (One of the wags at Hondo called it the “Paper Cub.”) A […]

[AVweb’s reprint of Dick’s memoir began with the Introduction.] In 1954, the typical, newly-minted, AFROTC officer tied the wedding knot and shortly thereafter began his first tour of active duty, a commitment of three years. For pilot wannabes, the tour included a full year of pilot training. Flight school assignments didn’t necessarily follow on the […]

[AVweb’s reprint of Dick’s memoir began with the Introduction.] I was never an airport brat, never cut grass around the hangars or washed airplanes hoping to be paid with a ride in a real airplane, never actually rode in an airplane until I was a sophomore in college. My early interest in things aeronautic was […]