Features

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 […]

AVweb: How are you, Mrs. Garvey? GARVEY: I’m very good, very, very well, thank you. I’m looking forward toOshkosh. AVweb: We’re looking forward to seeing you. GARVEY: Thanks. The secretary is joining us this year, which is a nice treat,and I believe Congressman [Todd] Tiarht (R-KS) [the Congressman from Wichita -Ed.] is also coming. He […]

In17 years as a designated pilot examiner, I administered over 4,000 flight testsfor a variety of certificates and ratings. During that time, I was witness to agreat many unusual performances by all kinds of applicants. Some were humorous,some tragic, but all were interesting. I wanted to take this opportunity to sharea few. “I’ll Take A […]

Hot Fun In The Summertime? It has been a pretty good month in thePilot’s Lounge. Summer is here and the airplanes are beautiful. For the secondyear in a row we have had great weather, so the old saw, “what comes aftertwo days of rain in Michigan? Monday” is not holding up. As one of thepilots […]