Features

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 […]

A lack of energy is one of those subtle health issues that are easy to ignore and hard to fix. We tend to brush off a lack of energy with a nap. But chronic lack of energy—especially for a busy pilot—can interfere with quality of life and even signal a potential health problem. For this […]

I was doing traffic pattern work in a Citabria on a Friday afternoon at a busy, towered, Class D airport. Meanwhile, the business jet traffic was picking up, and the tower controller was doing an admirable job working our touch and goes in between the jet arrivals and departures. Lear123 (just departed): KXYZ Tower, be […]

Stuff happens. One minute the engine may be purring like a kitten, the next it can be coughing up a hairball. Pilots who react well to such challenges often credit their training, applying the instincts honed by indoctrination without the need for excessive thought. How does that happen? Most pilots regularly practice simulating an engine […]

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 […]

Garmin Sues uAvionix I knew it was just too good to be true. Any chance of ADS-B technology selling for under two thousand dollars is gone. Back to ten thousand dollar ADS-B systems with subscription charges on top. People think that autonomous electric UBERs are going to get certified in a couple years…. HaHaHa! ADS-B […]

As soon as Hurricane Irma had moved inland north of Florida, there was a lot of traffic heading east back into the Florida panhandle from the Gulf Coast; you could see the line of traffic on ADS‑B stretching for miles. ATC called each aircraft in sequence: ATC: Cessna 123, you get a reroute. Advise ready […]

I was flying IFR in VMC between St. Petersburg and Orlando Executive. Central Florida TRACON (Orlando Approach) was vectoring non‑commercial traffic over the top of Orlando International for an eventual turn to the north or continuation to the east. In my case, after passing over Orlando International, I would get a descending north turn followed […]

Effective and efficient use of the IFR system requires you to know the essence of the FARs and AIM. Essentially FARs are typically written to define what the controller cannot let you do. But only your imagination and operational needs will determine what the controller can let you do. So, you must be somewhat creative, […]