Features

Heard recently one morning on JFK tower frequency. JetBlue: Tower, is our speed compatible with the aircraft ahead of us? Tower: As long as you don’t go to warp factor 6, you should be fine. Marty Twersky

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 web site at www.ntsb.gov. Final […]

Aviation weather columns typically talk about hazards in terms of elements: “Watch the 0 to -20 degrees C layer for icing.” “Be cautious of wet, clear nights because of fog,” etc. We can always learn more from a change in perspective, and we can do so using surface charts from the Aviation Weather Center website. […]

I was at HEF and heard this on ground frequency. RJXXX: HEF ground this is RJ NXXX at APP FBO ready to taxi with ECHO, ECHo, ECho, Echo, echo, ec Jerry Dahl

Anytime you get a group of flight instructors together, the topic of weather will enter the conversation in some form. It may range from how crummy it always seems to be when a CFI has nothing but primary students on the schedule to how miserable it is to preheat a Cessna 152 in the winter […]

If you’re doing it right, and everything works as advertised, that takeoff you just made eventually must be followed by a landing. While takeoffs pose their own challenges, landings can be problematic for many pilots. You might have a problem with airspeed, or with when and how to flare. You might have a problem with […]

Back before Houston’s Hobby airport was given a Class B veil, I had my single engine Beechcraft based there. It was a busy mix of private planes and Southwest Airlines jets. One afternoon, as I was returning to the airport, I was directed to overfly the field and turn final to runway 17. At Hobby, […]

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 web site at www.ntsb.gov. Final […]

When proposals for a custom paint job on my second-generation Cirrus came in as high as $25,000—with up to 10 weeks of down time—I considered stepping up to a newer model. But my investment in numerous upgrades and my comfort with the aircraft in a variety of missions and weather convinced me to keep my […]

Anchorage Approach:“Skylane X, traffic four miles at your one o’ clock, type and altitude unknown. Possibly birds.” Skylane: We have the birds in sight. Approach: Say type and altitude. Skylane: They’re ducks at 4300 feet, westbound. Don’t get to give a PIREP on ducks every day! William Fraley