Features

John Raymond Barcus: A Destiny in Aviation Thanks for another great article, Paul. It’s true, the people around us at the airport have some amazing life experiences, worthy of recording. I wish I had recorded more from my two aviation mentors. I heard plenty of stories, but I’m certain these were a fraction of the […]

Considerable insights can be gained by examining aircraft accident statistics. But sometimes—well, the results aren’t earth-shattering, but can be interesting nonetheless. Take the issue of pilot experience. We would certainly expect more-experienced pilots to make fewer mistakes. But what’s the actual difference? It’s not something that’s only relevant to homebuilts. But my Experimental/Amateur-Built aircraft accident database […]

[Submitted by AVweb reader Bill Rackley] When my girls were young, we planned a trip to visit an old high school friend of my wife’s who lived near the beach in Fort Myers, Florida. We had been promoting the trip all week, telling the girls we were going to spend the weekend at the beach […]

A typical pilot is concerned with aircraft maintenance only to a limited degree. He or she often lacks any ability to perform or approve maintenance at the same time they’re responsible for pre-flight inspections and ensuring the paperwork demonstrates airworthiness. And although the FARs make the owner/operator responsible for ensuring inspections and maintenance have been […]

Every instrument approach procedure we fly ends in one of two ways: We either see the runway environment and land, perhaps after circling to align ourselves with a runway, or we don’t. When we don’t, we fly a missed approach procedure designed to get the aircraft back to a safe altitude and position from which […]

With four choices of turboprop singles in the lineup, Daher’s static display at the NBAA-BACE 2022 gathering in Orlando this past October was a busy place. The main attraction was the clean-sheet FAA-certified Kodiak 900, an airplane with long delivery backorders and sizable demand from a diverse group of customers—from private owners to air ambulance, […]

Buying Backcountry: Focus On Your Needs Rick, American Champion designed the airfoil tail, 11% larger, out of necessity when the “Scout-Water Bomber” was developed in 2010. The bomber version carried 1,000 pounds of water in the back seat area. Equivalent to 5.9 FAA standard folks in the back seat! Let that sink in! The flat […]

Dialing in the altimeter setting is perhaps one of the most universal, timeless rituals of aviation, spanning decades, continents, and cultures, and tying all pilots to one another. This underscores the importance of atmospheric pressure and its effect on flight safety. But how much do you know about where those numbers come from? In this […]

As the World War II story goes … at an advance American fighter base during the North African offensive, mechanics fixed up a left-behind medium bomber, which took on the role of squadron “hack,” including one regular mission that was never recorded on the official logs. Apparently, there was no shortage of GI beer, but […]

Want to start a fight at a gathering of pilots? Just innocently ask, “Hey, what’s the best backcountry airplane?” Go hide. Then come back in 10 minutes and watch the chairs flying.  Backcountry flying and the airplanes designed for it have powerful allure that, combined with the adrenaline factor of STOL operations, often causes any […]