Features

On the afternoon of Thursday, October 23, 2014, I was flying from Goodyear, Arizona to Boulder City, Nevada, in the Van’s RV-8 that I built and have been flying for two years. I fly this very scenic desert route once a week to get to work. Weather permitting, I try to choose a course that […]

Not many controllers away from the northern border of the U.S. are familiar with Canada’s alphabetic aircraft registration system and it can cause confusion. C-ABCD: XXXX tower this Canadian Civil Charlie Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta. Request runway in use. No response C-ABCD: Again XXXX tower Canadian Civil Charlie Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta requesting runway in […]

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 […]

Our main airport has several flight schools and they keep us air traffic controllers quite busy. It’s easy to tell when they get a new batch of students—those first radio calls for VFR clearances and eventual taxi and takeoff are usually halting, uncertain affairs, dragging on as students parrot their instructors without truly understanding the […]

On Presidents’ Day weekend, POTUS had West Palm Beach shut down with his TFR. Boca was swamped with corporate and private traffic trying to avoid the TFR restrictions. We were sitting in a long line waiting for departure, with numerous jets lined up for arrival, when a weekend warrior called up tower inbound asking for […]

In our series on the growing world of aircraft refurbishing, we’ve looked at every phase of a total refurb from avionics to interiors and from engine replacement to paint. In this article we’ll deal with what is either the start or finish of a refurbishment—buying an airplane you intend to refurb or one that has […]

There I was, sliding down from my cruising altitude toward my VFR destination, still 30 or so miles out. It had been a smooth ride, and Otto was following a heading and descending at the selected 400 fpm. I had let the power come up during the descent, along with airspeed. The big Continental in […]

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 […]

While flying from the northeast to south Florida last week it was bumpy at all altitudes and everyone was trying to find a better ride. I overheard this conversation with ATC. United XYZ: Jax Center, were getting a rough ride here at 360. Do you have anything smoother? Jax Center: Yes, I-95 United XYZ (after […]

We’ll cut to the chase. The typical basic ground-up IFR avionics upgrade is going to approach, if not exceed, $20,000 (in 2015 dollars). This won’t buy an autopilot or primary flight display, so you’re stuck with steam gauges unless you can spend around $35,000.Sadly, we’ve witnessed enough buyer remorse over the years when owners upgrade […]