Features

Anyone who has flown a Beechcraft will have come away impressed with the lines quality and, especially, the handling qualities. All the way down to the lowly Musketeer, Beech just took pains to get the airplanes handling qualities a cut above everything else, and that applies in spades to the Baron series. Even so, every […]

I flew for Air Wisconsin, and O’Hare was an important hub for us. Taxiing out one day, Ground requested a “short count” from us. My co-pilot, who had been a controller there, replied: “One. Is that short enough?” Edward J. Godecvia e-mail

Russia unveiled its answer to the F-22 this week (while the F-22 is grounded for safety issues), and the Chinese are busily testing a similar platform. Are they flashes in the pan, or is the U.S. falling off the cutting edge of military design? Is the U.S. losing its air superiority? (click to answer) Last […]

This happened a few weeks ago in Turin, Italy. An Alitalia airliner was kind of delayed behind a small Piper making his landing. Alitalia:“Torino tower, what is the speed of that small thing in long final?” Piper Pilot:“To begin with, this ‘small thing’ is all mine … .” Fiore Ambrogiovia e-mail

A new study out of Notre Dame has determined that chief executive officers who are also pilots lead their companies especially well. This week, we’d like to know how that gibes with your experience. Do pilots make better CEOs? (click to answer) Last Week’s Question: Results Want to see the current breakdown of responses? Take […]

Each week, we run a sampling of the letters received to our editorial inbox here in AVmail. One letter that’s particularly relevant, informative, or otherwise compelling will headline this section as our “Letter of the Week,” and we’ll send the author an official AVweb baseball cap as a “thank you” for interacting with us (and […]

[AVweb‘s reprint of Dick’s memoir began with the Introduction.] A considerable amount of classroom time was devoted to aerial navigation, including the resolution of wind drift and other problems on the two-sided E6B computer: Compared to contemporary electronic magic, the term “computer” is lost on the E6B, but it did the job for us more […]

Back in the early ’70s, I was an FO for now-defunct Cascade Airways in the Pacific Northwest. We were known to ATC as the VFR on-top airline. The following exchange was heard one day: ATC:“Ah, Cascade 123, Seattle Center; what do the clouds look like for you out there?” Cascade 123:“Well, let’s see — there’s […]

A woman in Oklahoma says D. B. Cooper, the name associated with the man who hijacked a Boeing 727 40 years ago and parachuted out the airstair door, was her uncle and he died in 1999. What do you think? Has D.B. Cooper been identified at long last? (click to answer) Last Week’s Question: Results […]

Back in the mid-’80s, Piedmont Airlines began flying out of Worcester airport (ORH) in Massachusetts to Baltimore/Washington International airport (BWI). A flight crew requested their IFR clearance, and I dutifully rattled it off to them in typical New England air traffic control fashion. As I concluded, the response I received in a thick Southern drawl […]