Features

Your body’s wondrous structure of bone, muscle, tendons, ligaments and assorted odds and ends is a fantastic erector set that keeps vital organs safe, and allows for all of life’s perambulations. It lifts, twists, bends on command, and permits pilots to go about their cockpit tasks without a second thought. But throw a monkey wrench […]

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 […]

After a half-century of experience in the cargo flying sector, long-time pilot Stan DeLong has seen it all. He claims to be semi-retired, but he still flies a Piper Navajo Chieftain during United Parcel Service’s peak season, and is chief pilot and check airman for Gem Air, LLC. If you make the mistake of assuming […]

I was flying near Salinas, California, when the Goodyear blimp was passing over the airport. Tower advised an inbound aircraft of the blimp in the area. Tower: “Beech 1234 be advised there’s a blimp at your two o’clock, three thousand feet.” Beech 1234: “Is that from the top or from the bottom? Doug Anderson Salinas, […]

Propping? What Could Possibly Go Wrong? I certainly enjoyed Paul’s description of the propping episode he experienced. He writes well and I’d like to see more. I’m not sure he has a clear understanding of what and why the impulse coupler does what it does, however. It is surprising that he hasn’t had many such […]

John Slemp of Aerographs Aviation Photography started taking pictures in 1984 as a hobby during his time in the Army. After leaving the service in 1989, he went to school for a year and a half to get a grounding in advertising photography before he began a career as a generalist—taking pictures for everything from […]

Flying is often a convenient and valuable means of travel. But it can also be lethal if we fail to abide some simple guidelines designed to keep us safe. Many of these rules, procedures, and limits were explained to us by our instructors, and then followed up by a request that we make a vow […]

Heard on ABQ CTR near GBN on 132.45: ABQ Center:Flight XYZ say ride conditions. Flight XYZ: no answer ABQ Center:Flight XYZ say ride conditions. Flight XYZ: no answer ABQ Center on 121.5:Flight XYZ, ABQ Center, if you hear us ident. Flight XYZ:Flight XYZ. Sorry my copilot was talking so loud about his race cars and […]

At AirVenture I accidentally came across the Aerovonics booth in the EAA Innovation Center and was blown away by their AV-20-S AoA multi-function instrument which will imminently be STC-AML’ed for certified aircraft. Most notable is that it uses ONLY existing pitot and static pressures to determine AoA via a Sperry algorithm developed in the 60’s. […]

In Valdez, Alaska, for the annual fly‑in and STOL competition, a Lake amphibian (not known for its STOL capability), in town for the fly‑in, departed early to beat the weather just before the last round of the competition. Heard on the temporary tower frequency as the competition continued and the Lake departed: Lake: “Tower, Lake […]