Features

My nephew Kermit and I rarely miss a movie that has flying in it. We’ve watched classics like “Islands in the Sun” and endured dogs like “Pearl Harbor” but we’ve always enjoyed each other’s company and popcorn at the movies.During one of my days off last week, I took Kermit to see the highly hyped […]

An oldie, but a goodie… I was behind a Grob 115 that checked in with the tower, holding short of the active, ready for takeoff, with a Shorts Skyvan on final. This is what happened next… Tower: Grob 123, sit tight. I’ll get you off just as soon as I get my shorts down. Tower: […]

This Week’s Question |Last Week’s Results PREVIOUS RESULTS *** Last week, in our continuing effort to get a better picture of how much time AVweb readers spend in the skies, we asked how many hours you’ve logged with an instructor over the last 12 months. Even allowing for simulator time, it seems it wasn’t much […]

I was reading a description of a pilot’s actions as he was programming his GPS the other day. It didn’t take me long to get lost. Press this button, go to that page, turn this dial. Pretty soon I found myself wondering, “Who’s flying the airplane during all this?” It sure seemed complicated.I’m sure it […]

Solar Flares Your story says, “Right now that’s not a problem because the sun is in a quiet phase, but it’s expected to get active again in 2011,” (AVwebFlash, Oct. 2).I believe that, if you check sources, you will find that we are now in a period when activity is increasing and will continue to […]

“On a clear, crisp day, after a particular strong Southern California winter storm dropped the Jet Stream well south and at a low altitude, I flew my Mooney 231 from Santa Monica, California, to Scottsdale, Arizona. After Landing, I was sitting in the FBO talking about the 100-plus knot tailwind at 19,000 feet when another […]

This Week’s Question |Last Week’s Results PREVIOUS RESULTS *** Last week, AVweb asked our Instrument-Rated pilots how many IMC hours they’d logged in the last 12 months. Not very many, it turns out – 62% of those who responded said they’d logged 15 or fewer hours, while only 5% of respondents said they’d logged a […]

A few years ago I was getting an IFR clearance from ground control. When I called for clearance I had a brain-fart and forgot where we were going. The conversation went like this: Me: Ground, Lear 1234 looking for clearance to ……. ummmmm …. that airport we’re going to. Ground: Lear 1234 cleared to that […]

During this year’s repositioning of the Pilot’s Lounge from the virtual airport to the EAA convention at Oshkosh, many of our regulars and visitors again partook of a rather cynical variation of the traditional form of recreation-at-the-airport-when-we’re-not-flying: watching arriving aircraft to see stupid pilot tricks.Sadly, we saw a bunch.While the majority of arriving pilots demonstrated […]

This Week’s Question |Last Week’s Results PREVIOUS RESULTS *** Last week, an AVweb reader wondered whether increased government regulation might actually be good for the major airlines, suggesting that it could provide a more stable path to profit and viability. AVweb readers on the whole seemed to disagree.  A full 36% of those who responded […]