Features

While traveling into Valdez, Alaska for the annual fly-in and STOL competition, a couple of planes were trying to hurry in before the airspace closed for aerobatic practice. A couple minutes after tower gave “best forward speed” instructions to a Lake amphibian (not known for great forward speed), the following exchange was heard: Tower: “Lake […]

We’ll admit our bias up front: We like flight simulators. A lot. Being cheap, we came to like them originally because we could use them to keep our instrument skills up for a fraction of the cost of getting in an airplane and putting on the hood—whether we could log the time or not. As […]

I’ve owned five different airplanes over the past 25 years and recently purchased a Piper Meridian. I was on an Angel Flight with a buddy who had flown with me many times but was taking his first flight in the Meridian. After takeoff, he asked me if I thought I’d ever get another plane. I […]

While flying one day in Northern California, I heard the following: Center: “Cessna 1234 are you planning to pass east or west of Mt. Diablo? Cessna: “We’re currently heading south. Center: (with a chuckle) “I understand that you’re heading south. But when you pass that mountain ahead, will it be on your left or right […]

The stomach is often called a second brain—connected, as it were, to the first brain by the vagus nerve. Although your stomach may play second fiddle, when it comes to your personal domain, it’s often supreme ruler. That’s why dealing with dyspepsia can be the first order of business prior to any flight. Matters of […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine, 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 at www.ntsb.gov. Final reports […]

From the time I started learning to fly, I’ve watched the odd dance aircraft owners and maintenance technicians do when it comes to fixing a broken airplane. The owner brings in the airplane, mutters something along the lines of “it ain’t right” or writes up a squawk in as few words as possible and departs […]

 Editors Note: This article originally ran in our sister publication,IFRmagazine in the June 1998 issue to recognize the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift. With the 70th anniversary approaching, and with the passing of so many of the veterans who acted courageously to supply the citizens of Berlin, we are running it again to […]

ADS-B and Privacy We are not properly addressing the privacy (in personal transportation) issues that are created by this system. Part of that discussion has to be the growing network of at-home computer users that are tracking private aircraft with FlightAware devices that are being pushed on the techie community by the flight tracking websites […]

Santa Barbara Municipal Airport has intersecting runways. Runway 7/25 handles all of the airlines and most private jets while the parallel 15/33 pair is for private piston aircraft—long as the normal westerly winds cooperate. Juggling the vast differences in approach speeds and timing on the intersecting runways requires a lot of skill and experience on […]