Features

This is a true story. The names have been changed, but the rest is unvarnished truth.If you’re an aircraft owner, reading this story should make you angry. If you’re an A&P mechanic, it should make you hopping mad. (I’m both an owner and a mechanic, so you can imagine how I feel.)Over the many years […]

Airborne Cellphone Use Your question omitted an important alternative: “I’ve tried to use my cell phone in the air, but it didn’t work” (QOTW, Mar. 30).The reason this is important is that I’ve heard that digital cell phones, which most are, are subject to having their transmitters shut down by the cell phone system when […]

The sun had gone down, the evening air show was over and it was time to for all tired pilots to bed down in their campsites at the Sun ‘n Fun campground in Lakeland, Fla.After a full day of roast-corn eating, trade-fair attending and craning our necks to a 45-degree up-angle, you’d think that everyone […]

Sometimes you fly touch-and-go’s, sometimes you watch others fly touch-and-go’s. Thrity minutes later, still at the runway’s threshold… Plane: Tower, 01Q. Tower: 01Q, Tower. Plane: 01Q has a request. Tower: Go ahead 01Q. Plane: 01Q would like to taxi back to the FBO to refuel. (pause) Tower: OK 01Q, we’ll see if we can’t get […]

New Marine One Contract On a topic other than general aviation, I was disappointed to hear that the Navy’s presidential helicopter contract went to Lockheed-Martin as opposed to Sikorsky (NewsWire, Jan. 31). The Lockheed product — the US101 — is simply a licensed copy of the European Augusta EH101 helicopter. It will be built by […]

Overheard while flying through Chattanooga, this exchange with approach control and an aerial photo operation… Skylane 12345: Chattanooga we would like to take pictures of the Chockamauga Dam, one rolling to right and one to left. Control: Approved. Maintain VFR. Skylane 12345: Chattanooga, we need to climb to 10,000 to take a couple more. (short […]

Seeing as I’m supposed to be on vacation this week, I thought I’d write about a subject that I enjoy: vectoring. I guess that doesn’t make you (the pilot) feel all warm and fuzzy inside, does it? Knowing that controllers enjoy vectoring you all over the sky for spacing when you just want to go […]