Features

Short runway, shorter fuse, and usually carrying less animated cargo… Tower: Understand you’re without cargo today. If you’re light, cleared for runway 6. N1234: All I have on board is my wife … and she’s heavy, but not THAT heavy. (pause) Tower: Roger N1234, and she’s flying with you, now? N1234: Yep, she’s got her […]

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), in coordinationwith the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Air Force RapidCapabilities Office, is conducting a series of tests through Jan. 20of a ground-based low-intensity Visual Warning System in the NationalCapital Region. The system being tested is intended to warn pilots who are violatingthe Air Defense Identification Zone […]

A number of readers were unable to view the images associated with thedestruction of a C-130 that touched down at night on a runway that was (unbeknownst to the crew) undergoing a facelift. We’ve stripped the images out of theoriginal PowerPoint presentation and present them here for your benefit: CLICK FOR FULL-SIZE IMAGES

Frost Contamination Regarding recent stories about frost on a wing (NewsWire, Jan. 3):Often proven is the fact that an aircraft with hoar frost on its wing will fly in ground effect at a given airspeed, but upon leaving ground effect at that same airspeed the wing will be stalled. Due to the now-higher angle of […]

Flying with the wife. Me: Skyhawk ##1, four miles south of the field, entering left downwind runway 22. Other Pilot: N##2 crossing mid-field. I dont see you, do you have your lights on? ME: We are all lit. Wife: (over the intercom) That didn’t sound right. Me: Just to clarify, the plane is lit, not […]

As I sit on an airliner hissing through the night sky — as someone involved in aviation — I’m struck by all the lies we tell each other. I’m traveling with my family, accompanying my wife to her parent’s home. As always seems to be the case, when you need to make haste, airplanes seem […]

ATC Retirement Age I think we are looking at an age-averaging game (Question of the Week, Dec 23, and AVmail, Dec. 27). Some individual will be past their prime before the mandatory age limit, but I believe this to be only a small percentage. To lose years of experience of both ATC and pilot personnel […]

Each story has links to AVweb’s original coverage for more details. You can also read about the year’s business aviation news in our BizAV Year in Review. Sport Pilot, Unleashed! Without question, the biggest GA story of 2004 was the release of the FAA’s new Sport Pilot rule — finally, after years of struggle and […]