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Twas the night before ChristmasAnd all through the landNot a creature was stirringA storm was at hand. Ol’ Santa was worriedAs he said with a frown,“The children expect me.I can’t let them down.” He checked on the weatherBut the forecast was drearyIt looked like this ChristmasMight not be so merry. So he gathered his reindeerIn […]

Everybody knows about “buyer beware,” but how about seller beware? Much has been written on the subject of protecting oneself when purchasing an aircraft (see Rick Durden’s excellent AVweb column or Brian Jacobson’s comprehensive book on the subject, Purchasing & Evaluating Airplanes), but I have yet to see anything on the subject of protection for […]

Ialways had enjoyed waking to find snow falling, although it had been a long time since I’d had the experience. Maybe this morning’s snow was prophetic, as a white blanket was never guaranteed in these parts this time of year. It made me feel particularly good in spite of the fact it would take while […]

Air rage is big news these days, but it seems to apply only to passengers who act up. Sadly, it occurs in cockpits, too. There are a small number of pilots who really do need some counseling in anger management, a lot more who could use some of the techniques, and nearly everyone could benefit […]

It barely even looks like an airport. There’s no fuel pump. No FBO. And there’s certainly no control tower. The asphalt is crumbling, and there’s an inadvertent pothole here, there and yon. Pilots who land on the runway had better brush up on their short/soft-field landing skills or risk dinging their prop with loose gravel. […]

It’s another one of those nights when I’ve stayed here in the Pilot’s Lounge after everyone has gone home. Tonight it is because I am still seething. I don’t want to get into my car because the level of anger I have over a case I settled this afternoon is still building. I have no […]

Click on any image to view a larger version.   Special thanks to “Anonymous” for sharing these images with AVweb.

At 12:26 PM on the 18th day of February 1943, the fortunes of the B-29program disastrously hit rock bottom. At that instant, Boeing research testpilot Eddie Allen, his crew and the heavily instrumented #2 XB-29 were destroyedin a crash. That story is told in “Eddie Allen and the B-29.” This is the story about the […]

The Twentieth Air Force and the B-29s it used to bomb Japan shortened the warby months, perhaps years, and saved, it has been estimated, a million or more U.S. casualties by ending the war before a planned invasion of the heavilydefended Japanese homeland was undertaken — an invasion that was scheduled tobegin November 1, 1945, […]

Robert M. Robbins was born May 15,1916, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. He learned how to fly during the summer beforecollege, earned a bachelors degree in aeronautical engineering from MIT in 1938,and went to work for Pan Am as a flight engineer on Boeing 314s. Three yearslater, with only 361 hours as PIC in single-engine aircraft, a […]