Features

This story originally appeared in KITPLANES. By Scott M. Spangler America’s car culture has inculcated consumers of almost every conceivable product to expect, desire, and demand a new model every year. “Do we really need to do that?” asked John McBean, president of Kitfox Aircraft. “Ford comes out with a new F-150 pickup every year, […]

On a nice fall afternoon, I was returning to my home airport after a Missouri Pilots Association board meeting. Another member was about 10 minutes ahead of me, and we were both on flight following with Kansas City Center. I heard Center give my friend a traffic advisory as we were nearing Kansas City. Center: […]

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 […]

Are You Open To The Public? A good point was made of which I think most pilots/public are not aware. That is… the FAA neither approves or disapproves any building of radio towers and such. As an FAAer for years, I took an Obstruction Evaluation course about 25 years ago. So between my memory and […]

Mother Nature is infinitely complex as is the weather that comes with it. After 40 years of flying and some good meteorology training (courtesy of the Swedish Air Force) I’m still occasionally baffled on how things play out. Here are a few examples where the unsuspecting pilot can get surprised. Temperature Changes You’re planning a […]

This story originally ran in KITPLANES. By Dave Prizio Randy Schlitter, owner of RANS Designs, Inc., has been working on an all-metal utility airplane kit for going on three years now. Subscribers to his newsletters have tracked the progress of this plane since August 2016, and orders have been pouring in for several months now. […]

Approaching Wilkes‑Barre/Scranton Airport, the traffic advisories from Approach were scant until after a bit, Approach said, “Archer 44939, traffic at your 11 o’clock, slow‑moving, type and altitude unknown. I’m not talking to him.” Me: “939 looking.” Approach: “You spot him yet?” Me: “Negative.” Approach: “Might be a train on the mountain.” Sure enough, there it […]

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 […]

Flying Freight In The Corona Crisis Nice write-up, but…let’s not forget the “real” heroes that make your mission possible. The “army” that includes the folks that: a) work location is non-optional, b) every bit at risk (more so because they work in a much less controlled environment), c) paid a small fraction of “freight dog” […]

For those of you who read my column last month on keeping the fires lit, I find it ironic that I find myself telling you about another engine failure that happened since then. Perhaps I shouldn’t write about engine failures? But it did happen, and my thoughts are to share the experience and decision-making with […]