Features

Whether it’s a long Saturday or a long weekend, The Weekender’s SocialFlight events begin early and go late. At Tampa North Aero Park in Florida, the third annual Festival of Flight is bringing hot air balloons, planes, deltas, kites, helicopters and more in one location starting Friday and through the weekend. All are invited to […]

Talk about IFR holding patterns in a recurrent training setting and your time will most likely be spent discussing entries, maximum speeds and mandatory reports. There is a need created by the realities of the system for ATC to park you somewhere in the sky until it is time to move on. The reasons for […]

Normal afternoon ground transmissions, when, out of nowhere: Unidentified Pilot:“Yeah, they have fajitas, enchiladas, burritos, quesadillas, fish tacos — they got everything!” [A short silence.] Ground:“Uhh, you just broadcasted that on BWI Ground.” [Another short silence.] (A Different) Unidentified Pilot:“Sounded delicious, though.” Shawn Byers

In discussions with new pilots at airports and on aviation forums, two of the recurring questions I get are how to give a good ride to someone who has never been in an airplane before and how come the spouses and families of a fair percentage of pilots don’t like to, or simply won’t, fly […]

In Brainteaser Quiz #210 we invited readers to share stories of their favorite aviation getaways, real or fantasy. Money was no object, because it wasn’t ours. And because fantasies can get a little weird, we’ve expunged all names that might link back to a non-pilot spouse or employer suddenly realizing why you get that faraway […]

Houston was only an hour behind us, but the weather was turning out much worse than forecast. The ceilings were steadily lowering and the METAR updates said the few airports along our route were going from marginal to worse. A pop-up IFR clearance would have been great, but there was a little problem: the airplane […]

With three days to spend for Labor Day, The Weekender scouted out some first-time fly-ins on SocialFlight, plus some big airshows. FlightLevel of Cape May County Airport in New Jersey will hold its first fly-in, which includes AIRFest at the Naval Air Station Wildwood Aviation Museum featuring WWII re-enactors and live music. Grab a free […]

Back when I was a student pilot in Navy Flight School, I was flying solo along the beach, conducting precision aerobatics practice. As I finished a barrel roll and set up for a loop, I heard a student-and-instructor aircraft check in to the area, and the exchange went like this: Instructor:“Solo aircraft 123, was that […]

Departing from a 4200-foot runway, the twin engine Beech B60 Duke lifted off after a 1500-foot takeoff roll. The landing gear was immediately retracted but at approximately 100 feet agl, a large puff of black smoke erupted from the left engine. Witnesses stated the airplane pitched up and then banked sharply to the left. At […]

Concerns about pilot aging are just as important for the younger pilot as for the more silver-haired among us. The US population is getting greyer, and it’s plain to see when looking around any airport, so too is the average pilot. This aging brings numerous challenges and a few rewards that should be important to […]