Features

The Pilot’s Lounge at the virtual airport was days and many miles away from the chair to which I was affixing myself with a seat belt and shoulder harness. I had foolishly started my travels via a ground conveyance that had proven its utility by breaking down rather spectacularly in rural Missouri. I managed the […]

When I was learning to fly in 1967 in Merced, Calif., we had no control tower. We were taught that after engine start-up, we should pretend to call the tower for taxi clearance. Another pilot trainee started his engine, then immediately started to taxi. The instructor stopped him and advised that he had forgotten to […]

Studs Terkel: We’re seated here, two old gaffers. Me and Paul Tibbets, 89 years old, brigadier-general retired, in his home town of Columbus, Ohio, where he has lived for many years. Paul Tibbets: Hey, you’ve got to correct that. I’m only 87. You said 89. Studs Terkel: I know. See, I’m 90. So I got […]

This Week’s Question |Previous Week’s Answers PREVIOUS RESULTS *** NASA has made the decision torelease the results of the aviation safety survey the agency had previously decided to withhold – but should that have been their call alone?  Last week, we asked AVweb readers who should make such decisions when it comes to releasing safety-related […]

I do believe I tried to pass on this little edict many years ago without success, and since I never saw a response, I will try one more time, just for my old Yankee mate, Ken Sunderland: An Aussie grazier flew his antique Auster aircraft to Mascot Airport, Sydney, some time back to enact some […]

This Week’s Question |Previous Week’s Answers PREVIOUS RESULTS *** Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing will soon have new owners, and last week we asked AVweb readers to cast their predictions as to who would walk away with the company’s assets. Cessna is the leading contender, of course, and nearly 3/4 of AVweb readers have the company pegged […]

Bob Hoover Just finished watching the short video of Bob Hoover and his Shrike Commander (Video of the Week, Oct. 15). It sure brings back memories of all the times I watched this in person over the years at Oshkosh. It surely is beautiful. I don’t know if anyone could ever fill his shoes. Plus […]

My nephew Kermit had moved up in the world. Fresh out of the Aviation College at the University of South Toledo, he was a sales-rep gofer for one of the dozens of new VLJ manufacturers that dot the flying landscape of late.He was justifiably proud of the “Sky-Screamer 100.” Not only did this three-place, subsonic, […]

Overheard in IFR Magazine‘s “On the Air” The American League Championship series between Cleveland and Boston began on a Friday night. Early the next morning, after an IFR handoff to Boston Center, the pilot of a Boston-bound aircraft posed the all-important question: Piper 123:Sox win last night? Boston Center:Yeah! Piper 123:That’s too bad. [thoughtful pause] […]

[Read the first chapter of A Pilot’s History here.] Our class of 51 sergeants, with newly sewn stacks of chevrons on our sleeves and silver wings pinned to our shirts, arrived in Long Beach, Calif., the heart of aircraft manufacturing facilities. We were to ferry these aircraft to modification plants scattered around the country and […]