Features

Frank Robinson Dead At 92 I was fortunate to hear this remarkable man speak at a Royal Aeronautical Society lecture in London. He even graciously answered a question from me. He changed the lives of many thousands of people by introducing them to helicopters, by making them light and simple. The R22 weighed half of […]

I was flying along, monitoring CTAFs and heard the following: “Penn Ridge, Penn Ridge, use caution. Use caution. Multiple parachutes in the air near Penn Ridge. Use caution.” Immediately thereafter, “Skydiving in progress over Brookhaven. Bombs Away!” Followed by, “Cross Keys, Yay Hooray. Skydiving All Day. Please Stay Away!” Then, me to New York Approach: […]

For pilots, no matter how clear the skies, we always seem to be dealing with the wind. So, let’s look at wind from the perspective of an aviation meteorologist—where it comes from, what goes into forecasting it, and even some tips to help keep your flying safer. What Causes Wind? Unless all your flying is […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause on the NTSB’s website at www.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after the […]

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, […]