Features

By Ken Scott Throughout the 1980s, tandem two-seat homebuilt designs were firmly in the mainstream. Burt Rutan’s VariEze and Long-EZ were popular, and examples of Dick VanGrunsven’s RV-4 were showing up at Oshkosh in rapidly increasing numbers. Then came the RV-6, a side-by-side airplane that was destined to become the most successful kit airplane of […]

I sometimes fly SIC on a Citation X based in the Dallas area, and on this occasion, it was my first “real” flight after simulator training. We were heading to Las Vegas, cruising at about 39,000 feet and Mach 0.92. I was thinking about the SR71 “ground speed” story often repeated on aviation forums and […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause on the NTSB’s website at www.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after the […]

Drone Collisions: Maybe Humans Are The Problem I’ll posit that humans are the problem, but not in the manner stated in this blog. Rather, the problem is that small UAVs (drones) are so easy to operate by common folks, and so comparatively cheap, that anyone without any common sense (or responsibility) can have and operate […]

Look at the RNAV (GPS)–A approach at Naples, FL (KAPF). Seems like it is a straight-in approach to Runway 32 but it only has circling minimums. There are three conditions stated in the FAA Instrument Procedures Handbook (FAA-H8038-16B) preventing straight-in minimums: 1) The final approach course alignment with the runway centerline exceeds 30 degrees, which […]

Paul Dye, retired NASA flight director, describes what it takes to operate the most complex flying machine ever built. It was not just another day in the life of NASA flight director Paul Dye, who was sitting in the exalted center seat at mission control once occupied by those titans of American spaceflight, Chris Kraft […]

While flying over Long Island recently on an Angel Flight Mission around 2:30 p.m. I heard the following: Cessna 1234: “New York, Cessna 1234 off Linden Municipal. Looking for flight following to Montauk.” TRACON: “Cessna 1234 Squawk 5678. How does the Sunrise look?” Cessna 1234: “Currently climbing and can’t see it. Will let you know […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause on the NTSB’s website at www.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after the […]

I’d Rather Be Mowing The owner of the airport where I live used to spend much time mowing around the runway with an ancient tractor pulling a bush hog. One year he fell prey to aging, and had a hip replaced. As you know, however, the mowing must go on, so I volunteered to run […]

As a working air traffic controller, I’m often introduced around the flight school as the “voice in the tower.” When conversations get around to asking about my job, it seems to me that new student pilots have this fear of talking on the “party-line” radio frequency. Student pilots stumble, scream, ramble, speak softly, rush through […]