Features

For all the blather about electric airplanes, you’d think by now there would be at least three or four to pick from and compare. But no, except for electric motorgliders, there’s only one commercially available electric airplane, Pipistrel’s Alpha Electro. Despite the lack of a refined regulatory framework, Pipistrel is finding buyers for the Electro […]

By the time a typical aircraft has a few years under its belt, it’s been modified from what rolled out of the factory. It might be additional or replacement avionics, a climb prop, vortex generators, auxiliary fuel tanks or a more powerful engine. It might be something relatively simple, like a ski tube or an […]

We need to be looking at Pennsylvania’s Quakertown Airport (KUKT), not Area 51 (KXTA), for extraterrestrials. For end‑of‑the‑world and save‑the‑world science‑fiction buffs, from the movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (original in 1951 and remade in 2008) the following waypoints are on the RNAV (GPS) RWY 11 approach at KUKT: KLATU (the humanoid alien), […]

Unexplained Drone Swarms Alarm Residents In Colorado As an RC modeler and full scale pilot, there are times and places where I should not be flying. Hobby flyers do not do night formation flights over or near populated or less populated places, no more than I would be circling my house at low altitudes at […]

In 22 facilities across the U.S., thousands of air traffic controllers actively watch the skies over their assigned sectors. Each Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) is almost a small town in itself. The Operations Room contains 50 to 60 consoles with large computer monitors displaying aircraft data blocks imposed on top of aviation landmarks […]

I was heading to Palm Springs from San Diego on an IFR flight plan. I heard another pilot call in for an IFR clearance and it went something like this: Transport 1234: “SoCal Approach we’d like an IFR clearance into San Diego.” SoCal: “How many souls are on board?” Transport 1234: “We have two pilots […]

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 […]

Boeing CEO Resigns Very predictable…Muilenburg did his assigned task…handle the MAX debacle fallout, take the brunt of the criticism, go through the congressional grilling, and be the one who publicly sheds the emotional tears for the loss of life. Once that portion of PR campaign is done, he is history. How he was fired, how […]

I’m not proud. I’ve done a lot of go-arounds in my career, and I’ll do one on my next flight if the occasion warrants. A lot of busted airplanes have resulted from trying to make a landing work, regardless of the situation. Back during my Army Aviation affiliations, our unit was equipped with Cessna O-1As […]

My son and daughter‑in‑law had just married. I set in motion a plan to surprise them during their flight back home. I got the frequency for Newark inbound flights at 16,000 feet from Albany Approach. I then contacted Boston Center for permission to contact United 139 for a personal message. Then it went like this: […]