Features

I fly a rather obscure aircraft for the Coast Guard: the HC-144, a twin turboprop about the size of a Dash 8. With the Coast Guard call-sign it is also often assumed we are a helicopter, resulting in the following exchanges throughout my time: While at 15,000 feet, 225 TAS: “What type helicopter is that, […]

Along with engine swaps, full-up avionics upgrades are the biggest investment you can make for your bird, and when you’re handed an invoice equal to the value of the aircraft, shouldn’t you fly away with the panel layout you want? Based on conversations we’ve had with buyers, that doesn’t always happen. Hold the cutting tools. […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause on the NTSB’s website at www.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after the […]

Normalizing Deviance Two thoughts: My dad taught me to ride motorcycles, and we rode together often during my formative years. As an inexperienced rider, I often got butterflies before and during a ride–Dekker’s chronic uneasiness. It’s not a particularly comfortable feeling, and I asked my Dad once how long it took before it went away. […]

Humans are really good at rationalizing. We do it all the time, every time when we cut corners, break rules or ignore evidence in pursuit of a successful outcome. We continue because it often has no consequences. The thing about rationalizing, though, is it can change our behavior. What once seemed wrong starts to feel […]

Many years ago I was flying my Cessna 182 from the San Francisco Bay Area east toward Columbia (O22) in the foothills of the Sierra range. This was right at the time all the various Northern and Central California approach controls were united in a single facility as they are now, all using the name […]

We’ve talked in general terms about how to mount the electric motor from the Zero motorcycle into the eXenos and covered the electrical connections and wiring in detail. But what about all the fiddly bits? As anyone who has ever built an airplane knows, the devil is always in the details. So let’s look at a few […]

As new aircraft and avionics become more sophisticated and capable, a pilot’s learning curve becomes more complicated. Understanding how and why things work the way they do is a critical part of our training and study. Brian Sagi’s article for Aviation Safety, “Automation Misbehavior,” explores some of the ramifications and remedial actions pilots should know […]

Not-So-Gentle-T-Storms Informative, tragic, and with that simple photo of the storm front entirely predictable. With a dusty degree in Aeronautics and decades of 121 experience I had to Google the terms Sferics, graupel, and CAPE. I do admit while radar charts are easily intuitive, the divergence chart left me studying, and I would consider it […]

As we’ve watched aircraft and fuel prices skyrocket amid a “hard” insurance market, we’ve been wondering whether those variables are conspiring to push prospective pilots to work for a sport pilot rating rather than the private ticket and whether current pilots are downsizing to light sport aircraft and taking advantage of the more liberal sport […]