Features

Few times in my life have I ever been as nervous and anxious as I was last week. Starting college, my first solo, my first airshow performance, and my first trip without my parents at the age of 13 — these events never presented as much excitement as I experienced last week.For the past five […]

I was sitting in the pilot’s lounge at the virtual airport, quietly minding my own business and practicing new hand gestures in case I had to go to Brazil, when Mark — one of the local pilots –caromed off the door frame and boomed into the lounge trailed by scraps of yellow paper emitted from […]

“While flying the Santa Monica VOR-A approach tonight, I heard SoCal approach say…” Approach: November XXXX say again type. NXXXX: We’re a Beech 19. You know, the little one. Approach: Roger. So what you’re saying is you’re a little son of a Beech.

*** PREVIOUS RESULTS *** Last week, AVweb asked you if the much-tauted ”bonus depreciation” provision in last year’s tax bill was responsible for the upswing in General Aviation. We discovered that AVweb readers are well-grounded and not quick to make snap judgements – just over 50% of you said that while it is an upswing, […]

Over the past three and a half decades, I’ve had the opportunity (and frequently the privilege) of working with a great many aircraft mechanics. At first it was as a nave customer having them perform inspections and repairs on my airplane. Later it was as a student and apprentice swinging wrenches under their supervision as […]

DC-9 Hard Landing The aircraft in the video was Ship 909 (NewsWire, Feb. 9). I worked at Douglas Aircraft back then and remember watching this video right after the event. Ship 909 was repaired but never sold to a customer. 909 ended up being used for a number of flight test purposes, one of which […]

I was in a tent and it was raining, but at least it was warm. Standing behind a plywood podium in a “forum tent” at a recent Florida Fly-In, I had been invited to give a little talk to the experimental airplane crowd on what airline flying was really like.I was more than a little […]

Overheard at Bankstown Airport in suburban Sydney… Tower: ABC, cleared for takeoff. Caution for a rabbit at the far end of the runway. ABC: Roger rabbit…

*** PREVIOUS RESULTS *** Last week, we polled AVweb readers about the missing funds that were supposed to be allocated to General Aviation in the wake of 9/11. Almost 40% of you thought the government pulled the rug out from under legitimate businesses, but another 33% said simply that it was “business as usual” in […]

Who Are the Terrorists? While it is very unlikely that a Jewish immigrant from Israel would be a member of al Qaeda (NewsWire, Feb. 2), it is not impossible for such a person to be a terrorist.Lest we all forget, prior to 9/11 the single most deadly act of terrorism in the continental U.S. was […]