Features

We just had our annual summer cookout here at the virtual airport. It was a success—we didn’t run out of brats, burgers or beer and nobody got food poisoning. Ok, we set the success bar low, but there was an excellent turnout and folks seemed to have a good time. Better yet, because the flight […]

The progression of flying technology housed in our military aircraft museums is fascinating for its scope and testament to the airmen, inventors, companies and manufacturing men and women who came before us. I’ve seen a number of excellent museums: The National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. is a must see. So is the […]

Mixed News On Refurb Trainers I think the key issue is what you said in your next to last paragraph: The cost of replacement parts is out of control. I can’t speak for Piper, but Cessna parts have skyrocketed in the past 5-6 years, making a full 172 refurb prohibitively expensive. Add to that, the […]

I was flying southbound in the Los Angeles basin in mid‑July 2017 when I heard a VFR pilot trying to get a shortcut through the Los Angeles Class Bravo airspace. SoCal: “NXXXXX how do you plan to navigate the LA Bravo airspace?” Pilot: “SoCal I’d like to go through the Bravo, LAX direct Brown Field.” […]

Back in the days when Pueblo, Colorado, still had a TRACAB (terminal radar in the tower cab), I was visiting with the controllers when the following took place. A Cessna pilot, who hopefully was a student, was on a flight from Colorado Springs, field elevation of 6,172 feet MSL, to Pueblo, elevation 4,725 feet MSL. […]

The cost of new aircraft keeps going up and the number produced keeps going down, so it’s really no surprise that people have begun looking for other ways to get the benefits of a new airplane without having to pay increasingly unreachable amounts for them. Taking old planes, stripping them down and rebuilding them seems […]

A pilot friend of mine once described a trip he and I flew in my airplane as “boring.” It was a one-stopper from Wichita to Florida, mostly done in or above IMC and at 11,000 feet MSL. It was a smooth flight without any drama, but my passenger found it unsatisfactory because he couldn’t see […]

Flying an RV-8 from Los Angeles, California to Oxfordshire, England in 19 days may strike many as an adventure of a lifetime. For me, the 7,000-n.m. trip was my way to return home after working four years in the Tesla Motors Design Studio in Hawthorne, California. Airfields along the Crimson Route, partially developed in WW-II […]

Boeing’s New Hypersonic Concept I’d love to see the technology advance. I’ve been following Reaction Engines in the U.K. for several years. The have a very interesting concept for using ultra-high-efficiency heat exchangers to produce oxygen from the air to use in rocket propulsion, thus reducing the need for the weight of O2 on board. […]

Cleveland Center: Airliner xyz, turn right heading xxx to intercept the localizer, cleared for the RNAV xx approach at XXX. Use caution for party balloons on the final approach course at around 2,100 feet. Airliner xyz: Party balloons? Cleveland Center: Yes a previous arrival told us he saw a group of party balloons at about […]