Features

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 […]

Common Sense vs. E-Everything My impression is that nearly all discussions of electric propulsion omit the fundamental problems of physics that limit the whole enterprise: the energy density of batteries. Of the three obstacles standing in the way of electric propulsion (energy storage, efficient electric motors, motor controllers) two have been solved. Small, lightweight, three-phase […]

Thunderstorms are the nemesis of general aviation. We can’t penetrate them nor fly over them. Fortunately, we have several sophisticated tools at our disposal to help in the preflight planning to make that all important go/no go decision before we head into the murk. Their sophistication is remarkable, and we need to choose those that […]

Editor’s Note: Lycoming has changed its on-site program after author Paul Dye took the course in 2016. “We combined the historical classroom and hands on portions; it is now a hybrid of the two in one fast paced, weeklong class. Students will have the opportunity to talk about the parts in the classroom and handle […]

By Todd DeVito This story originally appeared in our sister title, KITPLANES. We have all heard the comment that we must be crazy to fly an aircraft we built in our garage. Does it make me even crazier to fly an aircraft someone I never met built in their garage? Continue on to discover how […]

The airline industry long ago figured out that one of the most dangerous things in aviation is two pilots trying to fly the same airplane at the same time. One inevitable result of such an arrangement is that there are times when no one is flying, and one of the ways we know this is […]

This past June we were returning from Canada to Colorado in mid‑afternoon IFR in our PA 32. The typical afternoon thunderstorms were in full swing. As we progressed homeward just east of a several hundred-mile-long line of cumulonimbus buildups we heard Salt Lake Center clearing departing flights up to FL 260. Nothing higher. All requests […]

Kobe Bryant, Eight Others Killed In Helicopter Crash Unfortunately, and tragically, the accident investigation in this crash will likely yield a rather mundane result – pilot disorientation and CFIT. Aeronautically there may not be much to learn. Even the motivation of choosing to launch into marginal conditions after weighing the risk versus pilot experience and […]

Not long after the gas crunch of the late ’70s, I became aware of the buzz regarding a new homebuilt aircraft from this fella Burt Rutan. It was supposed to be ultra fuel efficient, unique in appearance, and built in an almost revolutionary way, sort of like a surfboard. With a lot of time spent […]

This story originally appeared in AVweb sister publication KITPLANES. Every time we go to‭ ‬a major show‭, ‬we try to make sure to drop in on Nick‭ ‬Otterback to see what he’s been working on‭. ‬The designer behind the Arion‭ ‬Lightning is always forthcoming and‭ ‬never gets ahead of himself‭. ‬He lets us know what’s […]