Features

Back in the early ’80s, I was making a living flying night-time aerial advertising with a “Skycaster” electronic moving-message sign that spanned the wings under the belly of my Cessna 172. Flying out of CMH, I would circle local communities with ads. My “low and slow,” combined with horizontal distance, gave the appearance that the […]

Heres a familiar scenario: An owner steps up to a twin or a high-performance single thats equipped with an older radar system. Unwilling to spend the money and effort to fix it or replace it, they pay to have the system removed. Sadly, many of these owners dont recognize the benefits of ships radar. The […]

Letter of the Week:Fly the Airplane The old saying of “I can type at 80 words a minute but I can’t fly” applies, in my opinion, to a high percentage of airline pilots around the world. Belatedly, in April of this year, the FAA issued a safety alert for operators, the purpose of which was […]

While flying IFR with a student in the Connecticut air space, we overheard a pilot with a Deep Southern accent ask the Bradley controller:“Will you let us go direct to ‘HEY DO’ today?” The controller replied:“We call that ‘HADUX’ up here.” The pilot then answered:“We thought it sounded Cajun.” Multiple laughter was heard on controller’s […]

Owning an airplane requires a certain suspension of the economic rules that govern normal people, but on the whole, the airplane industry operates under an even more perverse logic: As sales soften, it raises unit prices, perhaps chasing away those buyers on the margins who might have been toying with pulling the trigger to buy […]

Since 1968, the 36-series Bonanzas has steadily built a solid record for workmanship, performance, handling and comfort. Prices on the used market reflect the high regard for the airplanes. Easy entry to the rear seats and club seating made them popular with passengers as well as pilots, even though the aft CG limit can make […]

Transitioning to your first aircraft that has ice protection equipment beyond a heated pitot tube is a big step for a pilot. Having a full complement of ice protection usually gives pilots warm fuzzy feelings about being able to complete more trips and handle any ice related problems that arise. Unfortunately, the current regulations and […]

Years ago in a sleepy college aircraft economics class, welearned the pecking order of items to consider when acquiringan aircraft. The short list included the usual items of damage history,engine time, avionics, operating costs and a variety of other factorsmaking obvious sense. But one aspect of aircraft acquisition wewerent taught is an issue thats gained […]

Letter of the Week:Factoring Human Factors I was interested in the article on the KSN770 published in the Sept. 13 AVwebFlash, in which it states that “graybeards may still prefer [to use] a transfer key” as opposed to using touchscreen controls. I’m not a graybeard (is there a politically-correct term for female pilots, too?), but […]

Mother heard scolding her son at Oshkosh:“So help me God, if you don’t straighten out, I am going to send you home on a commercial airliner!” Only at Oshkosh! David Petersvia e-mail