Features

User Fees Thanks for your great article [on user fees; NewsWire, Mar. 13]. I am consistently amazed about how intensely they (the airlines and the FAA) keep pushing a bad idea. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but are we seriously taking advice from companies whose business plan was something along the lines of, “Lose […]

Galaxy Quest is truly one of my favorite movies, a splendid yet warm-hearted send-up of every schlocky sci-fi series you’ve ever seen. In it, we learn that the crew’s motto — “Never give up, never surrender” — begins its bane but concludes its savior.Recently, this phrase has been threading through my gray matter like some […]

Sometimes I just can’t fathom what makes aircraft owners do some of the things they do. Particularly amazing to me are some of the mechanical problems that aircraft owners elect to live with rather than fix.Now I’m just as averse to spending money as the next guy (and probably more than most). In fact, I’ve […]

Taxi Into Position and Hold — Not! I would like to inform you that taking away TIPH is going to cause delays (NewsWire, Mar. 9). Places like TEB airport are going to have it the worst, where staffing is way below the numbers. They cannot open up the position needed in order for the local […]

Sometimes you just gotta tell it like it is… While on short final for the center runway of KIWA during a busy time of day we overheard tower give instructions to the aircraft following behind us: N1234: Gateway tower, N1234, with you ILS three-zero-charlie. Tower: N1234, roger, number two cleared to land, there will be… […]

Damn, it’s early! I know it is really three hours later, body-wise, because I live on the east coast, but it still feels like 5 a.m. A light rain is falling on LAX this morning. Not enough to get my uniform wet and certainly not enough to justify a rain poncho as I head out […]

(In)Security There is a trend that is happening at a lot of small general aviation airports. There is so much extreme security that it is hard for pilots to get to their own airplane, which tends to make the pilots so mad that they don’t care about any pilot-watch programs or security measures.Douglas Humble ATC […]

Overheard late last Friday night at my local non-towered airport… C-G1234: Unicom, request Airport Advisory. Unicom: Sorry, say again your sign? C-G1234: I’m a Gemini. I like candle-light dinners and long walks on the beach … but I don’t see what that has to do with anything, right now.