Features

It was a very good afternoon in the pilot’s lounge at the virtual airport. OK, the weather was well and truly lousy, and no one was flying. But a lot of pilots had somehow decided that it was the kind of afternoon where the right thing to do was sit in the ratty recliners, drink […]

Pro pilots tell us that it’s not the difficulties we train for that will get us. It’s the ones we can’t train for. Here are seven examples of IFR pilots who coped with the unexpected. What would you have done? Too Much Tech? A Beechcraft V35 departed VFR at dusk with rain squalls in the […]

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 accident, although some take longer. […]

Boeing 737 MAX Grounding I strongly suspect that many (if not a majority) of airlines do not include enough aircraft handling simulator training on their conversion courses, especially on difference courses. For example, converting from the B737-800 to the 737 MAX should include simulator training specifically aimed at how to deal with a malfunctioning MCAS, […]

I was flying with a student in SoCal. Before taxi, she got an appropriate VFR clearance as required per ATIS. However, she was a little confused and despite talking to approach with a distinct transponder code, was unsure if we had flight following. She asked me if she could confirm with ATC and against my […]

Gettysburg, Penn., has a nice little municipal airport (W05). Its lone runway, oriented 06/24, is 3100 x 60 feet of well-paved asphalt and located just a couple of miles northwest of the historic town’s tourist attractions, and one of the most important battlegrounds in American history. Wyoming’s Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport (48U) is a […]

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 accident, although some take longer. […]

On a particularly clear day I was practicing commercial maneuvers west of Sioux Falls when I heard a King Air check in with Approach. He was told to descend to 4000 feet and expect the visual for Runway 15 when he had the field in sight. King Air: “Five three golf we’re goin’ to four, […]

Boeing Buys ForeFlight Beyond disappointing. Foreflight is going to get caught up in a corporate structure that will bleed all the imagination and energy out of this very important company. I certainly can’t judge the owners for “cashing” out but rest assured Boeing will raise prices and will not add “value”. What value, what strength […]

While there are certainly arguments about how many pilots will be needed and when, stats like those presented in Boeing’s last Pilot & Technician Outlook, which estimates that 635,000 commercial aviation pilots will be needed in the next ten years, have caught the attention of the airline industry. So much so that the last five […]