Features

It’s easy to see why the Piper Seneca after all these years still makes sense as a step-up twin. Arguably, it does nothing extraordinarily well—it’s not exceptionally fast or a joy to fly compared to other light twins, nor will it turn heads on the ramp—but it does a lot well enough. It obviously works […]

One of the joys of flying in the New York City metro area is listening to the controllers. In addition to being the best in the business, they deliver some good wisecracks, always with that unmistakable accent. We had just landed at Islip (KISP): Islip Tower: “Comair 234, take a left at the next intersection […]

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 […]

Emergency Landings: Beach Or Breakers? Nice video. We just discussed this at our flight school–we fly out of W29 and the end of the runway is the Chesapeake Bay. Your video helps. Beach landings are as old as powered aviation. The Wright brothers settled on Kitty Hawk based on wind tables they obtained from the […]

You successfully executed the approach; the engine is shut down and the wheels are chocked. Another successful flight is over. Or is it? To me, every flight is a learning opportunity. Being safely on the ground is the best time to reflect on the latest dance with the elements. Just because you landed without incident doesn’t […]

Heard on ground frequency at Oakland‑Pontiac, Michigan, airport. Oakland Ground: “Ground vehicle 1, we’ve had a report of a hawk and a fox fighting at the approach end to 9R. Please investigate.” Ground One (minutes later): “Oakland Ground, this is Ground Vehicle One. The fight is over. The hawk won.” Ground (in his best movie […]

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 […]

Rudy And The J-3 TP Massacre Paul, What a wonderful story and so typical of dad. If you came to the airport, he would treat you like a star. Even if you did not bring an airplane that he wanted to fly. We grew up with the TP maneuver. At a Frasca Field Airshow, the […]

“May you live in interesting times.” The purported Chinese curse is a most suitable understatement for what we inhabitants of this fragile blue marble have been experiencing as the year 2020 grinds on. Here in the pilot’s lounge at the virtual airport the regulars have been staying in touch electronically and flying little. COVID-19 has […]

Technologies develop, sometimes slowly over time, with the kind of sloth that makes you wake up one day, see an evolved landscape, and question your strongly held beliefs. Such as: For any airplane you’d consider flying in instrument conditions, at least a modicum of redundancy is required. We used to want fully distributed systems to […]