Features

Noel Merrill Wien was born April4, 1930, in Virginia, Minn. His father, Noel Wien, was born in Lake Nebagamon,Wisc., went to Alaska in 1924, was the first to fly the 350-mile route fromAnchorage to Fairbanks, the first pilot of a passenger flight from Seattle toFairbanks, and the first pilot to fly over and beyond the […]

I don’t always fly airliners. Based on years of seniority and the fact that people don’t think we fly much anyway, it isn’t surprising that I was enjoying a day off and was spending it at the local tennis club. I have always said that if rejection and loss bothered me, I wouldn’t still be […]

Some people say that you could put two pilots in Yankee Stadium and, before the game was over, they would be off in a corner somewhere talking about airplanes. Several years ago I moved to Clear Lake, Iowa. Shortly after arriving, our mutual interest in aviation led me quickly to my new neighbor, Bob “Doc” […]

I had this great idea, see. I’m always getting questions like, “What’s it like being a controller?” and, “So, what does a Safety Rep. do, exactly?” I never really have a good answer for either of those. At least, not an answer that I can give in less than a minute. So I thought I’d […]

On the morning of June 18, 2002, Scott perished doing what he loved:practicing aerobatics in a Yak-52, in the mountains of Brentwood, Calif. He hadrecently been working to advance his aerobatic skills, and placed 13th among 19pilots in his first competition, at Paso Robles, the weekend of June 8. He hadalso flown aerobatics in Citabrias […]

Just as in the car industry, if the notion of sure-thing profit exists in the world of general aviation, its in high-dollar airframes, not entry level two-place designs. Thats one reason why new trainer production came to a standstill during the 1980s and 1990s and why the volume in this market continues to be low. […]

I was sitting in one of the big chairs here in the pilot’s lounge at the virtual airport when I read that the president, on June 6, 2002, had signed an executive order dictating that air traffic control is no longer an inherently federal function. That act was a significant procedural step toward imposition of […]

Wally Roberts was born October 22,1936 in Pasadena, Calif., close enough to the Monrovia airport to see airplanesin the pattern. Around age 12, he watched a PT-13 auger in after stalling at thetop of a loop, killing the pilot and his girlfriend. For a while after that hehad a phobia about airplanes, but when that […]

The ILS approach was in heavy rain and came at the end of a long day. One of those days that was a never-ending five-leg load of crappy weather, surly passengers, a lethargic ATC system, and air-conditioning packs that just never seem to catch up. My co-pilot for this four-day “hostage crisis,” Scott, summed it […]

Having flown family and friends and done a substantial amount of on-demand passenger charter flying in singles and light twins, carrying all kinds of people (from babes-in-arms – to old folks who had to be assisted into the airplane – to invalids) over an aviation career that has spanned more than half a century, I […]