Features

Sept. 5, 2019. Hurricane Dorian is pounding the North Carolina shoreline. We are CAVU in Ohio headed for New England and hoping to slide across the top of the weather, which is an arc of clouds 350 miles to the southeast of us, clearly rising above the horizon. We have been getting handed from one […]

With much talk about modern avionics in recent years, from glass cockpits to ADS-B, one fact remains unchanged: most aircraft have vacuum systems and gyroscopic instruments that sometimes fail. Although, there are pilots flying today’s skies that have never seen a gyroscopic instrument or have had to execute an NDB approach—with such instruments covered—there are […]

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 […]

Bahamas Relief Flights I respect the position and knowledge of AVweb and enjoy reading your articles. However, as the second aircraft to put wheels down at Marsh Harbor on Thursday – I disagree with a majority of your coverage of this issue. Having extensive prior knowledge of these islands prior to the storm I was […]

Cruising over the upper Midwest we heard this exchange: Aircraft: “Indy Cen … (SCREECH) … vember 12(SQUEAL) … checking in at … (HOWL)” Indy Center: “N123 Congratulations! You win the award for the worst … radio … ever!” Angelo Iannuzzo Lowell, MA

In my view, there are four basic categories of aviation weather threats: low clouds and reduced visibility; turbulence and low-level wind shear; airframe ice; and thunderstorms (which may contain the three other hazards in one nasty package). When evaluating weather for a planned flight, I look at observations and forecasts with each of these specific […]

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 737 MAX This MCAS problem reminds me of the “unintended acceleration” of the Audi 5000 from the 1980s. From most of the press reports, it sounded like the car would go full speed on its own, with the brakes failing to work at all, the drivers rendered as helpless passengers as the cars went […]

At Camp Graling, Michigan: Army 12345 (in a pirate voice): “Graling Tower, Arrrrrmy Copter 12345, we be a fleet of three UH‑60s on Charrrrrlie taxiway, ready to set sail to the southwest.” Graling Tower: “Army…(pause)…Army…(longer pause)… Arrrrrmy Copter 12345, ahoy, Matey. Clearrrrred for takeoff, Charrrrrlie taxiway.” Robert Schapiro “Somewhere in the Middle East”

Watching the continuous streaming of a waterfall can be mesmerizing. Something inside all of us expects it to have a beginning or end, so we watch and wait, and eventually we just let it go—realizing that it will continue falling down in that place, sometimes for centuries. The wind is like that too, but we […]