Features

The earth’s surface is about 71 percent water. Most of us will never pilot a personal aircraft long distances over oceans, but eventually flying over some body of water while beyond gliding distance to land is almost a certainty. When we do that in a single-engine aircraft, the adverse consequences of an engine failure increase […]

In upstate South Carolina, Michelin has a number of plants that manufacture tires and one recently completed a 40‑year anniversary. Maybe the FAA wanted to honor such presence in the local economy with the MCHLN TWO ARRIVAL, serving several airports including the Greenville‑Spartanburg International Airport. There you can find PROVN MCHLN TYRES. I’m sure that […]

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 […]

Trade-A-Plane Ending Print Edition I will truly miss the printed version of Trade-a-Plane. I was used to see them at pretty much every FBO I landed at and always browsed through it. When buying and then selling a plane and during my job as chief pilot (while being involved at purchasing and selling aircraft to […]

I’m bored! Admit it. You’ve made the statement loud and clear on more than one of those flights where you are following the magenta line in good weather and waiting for your destination to appear over the horizon. Sure, every once in a while, you’ll do a steep turn or wander off course a bit […]

The only time I’ve performed what I consider to have been a for-real high-altitude takeoff, it went fine. I was at Albuquerque, N.M.’s Double Eagle II airport, elevation some 5800 feet. It wasn’t the middle of summer, but it was a warm, sunny fall afternoon. I don’t recall which runway I used, but it offered […]

While flying as co-pilot (actually, the radio operator) on a VFR Angel Flight blood delivery mission to San Bernardino Airport (KSBD) near Ontario, we were handed off to the tower by SoCal approach. Unbeknownst to us, the KSBD tower doesn’t have radar even though it has a FedEx depot, a big FBO, an airliner graveyard, […]

Crashworthiness Common Sense Nice article Rick, I would add only one thing. Having owned a Stearman for many years I have had this discussion many times. Here in the Midwest in the fall, should you head for the ten-foot-tall corn fields or the four-foot-tall soy bean fields? Bean fields are tangled with vines and will […]

It was a foggy mid-week morning when I stopped into the pilot’s lounge at the virtual airport. I was doing some research for an article in our sister publication Aviation Consumer and I needed Wi-Fi access, so I figured I’d tap into the flight school’s system. Karver, recently instrument rated and Kary, a long-time pilot […]

We’ve all told apocryphal stories of pilots falling so far behind the airplane that they were only holding on by the static wicks. Amusing as these tales may be, falling behind is a major cause of accidents and incidents. There are two reasons for finding yourself in this unenviable situation: Either the airplane is going […]