Features

Every pilot out there is going to hate mefor this, but I cannot help but tell this story. To brag. To flaunt my pleasureshamelessly. Please, cut me a little slack, for this has been one of the most wonderfulachievements of my flying career. I cannot stop grinning, every time I think of it. Adream has […]

It’slate at night in the pilot’s lounge. Outside the windows, the pilot-activatedrunway and taxi lights are dark, silently awaiting the next airplane – althougha propeller hasn’t turned in several hours. Everyone left quite a while ago;some inquired as to whether I was going, and accepted my “a bit later”before becoming receding taillights. There is but […]

Sometime ago an AVweb subscriber, Ms. Annette Wright, requested a column onthe subject of night VFR. We here in the U.S. are fortunate in that there is nospecific rating required for a pilot to fly VFR at night. However, thissituation does not prevail throughout the rest of the world. In fact, in manycountries an instrument […]

I had just returned from my second tour in Vietnam flyingfighters and was spring-loaded to the “go” mode. Now here I was, a “staffweenie” in a fighter wing at Kadena, getting checked out in the base flight T-39Sabreliner. Although I’d had a lot of quality flying experience in a short time period, Iwas at the […]

While I was at EAA AirVenture ’99 in Oshkosh, I had thehonor of interviewing Paul Poberezny, whotold me, “Flying on the airlines isn’t flying, it’s transportation.” At thetime, I didn’t appreciate the significance of Paul’s remark quite as fully as I do now. My trip to Oshkosh was flying. I flew there in Mike Busch’s […]

Under atranslucent blue bowl of desert sky, the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park sprawls over600,000 acres of mountains, desert, and oasis canyons. Located near the California-Mexicoborder, approximately 50 nm northeast of San Diego and 40 nm north of Mexico, this is thelargest State Park in the contiguous U.S. Although a desert now, from the air the […]

WhatHave You Got In Your Back Pocket? The Brits have such a good phrase for thistime of year, “high summer.” The days are still long, the Sun burnsthrough us on the ground so we fly as much as we can and wish we were flyingmore. A few of the pilots here in the Lounge just […]

Using the 66 Iridium satellites in low earth orbit, Icarus Instruments hasdeveloped an aircraft interface for the Kyocera satellite phone. The interfaceplugs into the aircraft’s microphone and headset jacks, and the pilot then plugshis headset and microphone into the Icarus box. The box can be powered by acigarette lighter plug or other aircraft power. Icarus […]

The FAA announced Saturday that it has chosen NavRadio Corporation of Golden,Colo., and ARNAV Systems of Puyallup, Wash., as industry providers for theFlight Information Services (FIS) datalink program. This service will allowpilots to receive displays of text and graphical weather, special-use airspaceinformation and notices to airmen directly in the cockpit. “This is a wonderful example […]