Features

When was it, to avoid compromising personal limits, you decided not to fly? Sure, serious deteriorating weather conditions are an obvious one. As I write this, severe turbulence SIGMETS from surface to 5000 feet have been issued over northwest Europe, which for me is an obvious “no flight.” But there are some diehards (or dare […]

The Weekender hopes to start the new year right by getting others airborne, and SocialFlight found at least one New Year’s Eve party to kick things off. TheLiberty Aviation Museum in Port Clinton, Ohio, will host a 1940s-style Big Band Hangar Dance complete with live music, food, free dance lessons and theme contests. The event […]

Way back in 1957, when I was an air traffic control trainee at RNZAF station Ohakea, I heard a Bristol freighter report:“We have just passed the Comet.” … then, a few seconds later, add:“The Comet was going the other way.” (The humor relates to the lumbering Bristol compared to the sleek inbound RAF Comet.) Murray […]

We see it happen here all too often. The Franklin County Airport in Sewanee, Tenn., sits at the western edge of the Cumberland Plateau. During cooler months, northwest winds are thrust up the side of the plateau and swirl back down toward the airport. Tall trees surround the runway and make the airport difficult to […]

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 7000 NM 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 […]

Perhaps one reason for the Cessna 182 Skylane’s longevity is that it has good hauling capability, good dispatch reliability, a relatively comfortable cabin and maintenance shops know how to work on it. Except for its intolerance for mismanagement on and around the runway—giving it an awful ranking in the NTSB reports—we suspect buyers are comfortable […]

While threading my way through thunderstorms coming on shore from a rig in the Gulf of Mexico, I heard New Orleans ATC say, “Tell your boss I like his movies.” After a short pause, I recognized the voice of Harrison Ford: “Thanks, and I like your radar vectors.” Jim Borger

Last Thursday, December 17, marked the 80th anniversary of the first flight of the Douglas DC-3, probably the most remarkable and successful transport created in the first half-century of powered flight. A buddy of mine kindly texted some photos to me that day—he was in a DC-3 in southern California on a commemorative flight. Of […]

The Weekender hopes to catch up with Santa Claus before his big cross-country flight next week, but he’s already on the move, according to SocialFlight. For starters, he’ll drop in via parachute at Bennington, Vermont’s Christmas fly-in Saturday. Stay for the holiday festivities with hot cocoa and a potluck lunch. Bring a dish to share […]

No matter how much automation we fly behind, no matter how many air-data computers are installed and no matter how simple it is, it’s likely a pitot-static system—pretty much like the one Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic—is what generates airspeed and some other basic flight information aboard the aircraft we fly. These systems are relatively […]