Features

We were over Tennessee having a pretty decent ride at FL390, but lower altitudes were not faring as well, and the chatter between aircraft and Memphis Center reflected the hunt for smoother air. As the crew of a regional jet (RJ) checked on frequency, they asked about rides. Memphis Center: It won’t smooth out until […]

The virtual airport and its pilot’s lounge came into being when I started writing this column almost exactly 20 years ago. (There’s a partial index of the columns hereand here.) The airport, the lounge and the characters who brought their wisdom to the discussions reported in the columns were, and are, an amalgam of airports […]

AVweb’sGeneral Aviation Accident Bulletinis taken from the pages of our sister publication,Aviation Safetymagazine, and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s website atwww.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after […]

If you’re lucky, you’ve gotten some of your aviation education from an instructor with extensive real-world experience. One CFI who fits that description—having flown freight, charter, airline and corporate without ever giving up teaching in the 35 years he’s had his certificate—likes to remind students of the difference between procedure and technique. The former is […]

Dynon’s Installation Policy This is long overdue and a step in the right direction. Now if the other manufacturers would follow suit… Jonathan Cullifer I agree with everything you said, Larry. Good article. I’m one of the “capable” you referred to. And I’ll add a “twist” to your comments. I’m an A&P with 40 years […]

A long time ago, I taxied my Cessna 182RG to St. Louis Lambert Field Runway 12L. I was first to the runway. There were about 18 Teenie Weenie Airlines (TWA) planes lined up on the taxiway for Runway 12R. An F‑18 appeared from the McDonnell Douglas facility on the north side of the field. Controllers […]

I was working field operations at a major airport and got this call: Ground: Ops 1, Ground. Me:Go ahead. Ground: We just got a report of a dead animal about the thousand‑foot markers on Runway 13. Me: Is that the previously reported dog that we cleared? Ground: Negative. I’m seeing feathers. From an unidentified aircraft: […]

With the advent of computer graphics and easy access to a variety of weather information on new forms of avionics and handheld devices, there is no need for an extensive textual forecast—the FA. While there are several excellent weather sources on the internet, we’ll use the NOAA suite (www.aviationweather.gov) for our illustrations. It may be […]

It’s easy to look at controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents as the kind you’ll never get into. Sure; you may suffer an engine failure from contaminated fuel, or scrape a wingtip while landing in a stiff crosswind or even forget to put down the gear before landing. But flying a perfectly good airplane into […]

Swift Fuels Suspends PAFI Activities I’m not at all surprised to see Swift bow out. They began life as a biotechnology company shopping microbial technology that might be used to produce aviation fuel. The economics were rarely discussed. During the clean energy boom eight years ago they (and other marginal concepts) were able to find […]