Features

The folks atMoffett Fieldlocated in Sunnyvale, California, musthave a thing about building things BIG. If you have ever overflown Moffettor driven past it on the Bayshore Freeway, you won’t forget the size of thehuge Navy blimp hangars. The largest was built to house theairship “Macon” and would swallow a whole squadron of P-3swithout any effort. […]

Thanks to Mike Overly of the Aviation Safety Institute, sponsor of AVSIG, forpermission to make this transcript available on AVweb. Moderator-Mike: The witching hour is upon us, so I’ll gavelthis formal conference to order now. Our guest, as you all know, is Tony Broderick. Rick Cremer, you’re first…goahead with your question. Rick Cremer, FAA HQ: […]

Horses thunder around the far turn, their hooves beating almostas fast as your heart. You watch your favorite colors come intothe homestretch, just a wish and a nose behind the leader. Winor lose, you leave elated at your first visit to Saratoga racetrack. In it’s heyday in the 1890’s, the racing season at Saratoga wasthe […]

The stereotype of pilots – tall and fit, with lots of hair andperfect vision – is one that not many of us live up to. Butthat doesn’t mean we can’t aspire to the image of dashing barnstormeror cocky cockpit commander. Poor vision not only shatters that image, but for many peopleit represents an inconvenience severe […]

Beginning in July 1996, the United States will undergo the mostsignificant change for observing, reporting, and coding surfaceweather observations and terminal forecasts in the past fortyyears. Not since the early 1950s, when the present airways code(commonly known as Surface Aviation Observation or SA code), andTerminal Forecast (FT) codes were adopted, has there been sucha major […]

Q1. What is METAR/SPECI and what do the acronyms stand for? A1. METAR is the international standard code format for hourly surfaceweather observations which is analogous to the SA coding currently used in theUS. The acronym roughly translates from French as Aviation Routine WeatherReport. SPECI is merely the code name given to METAR formatted productswhich […]

$ maintenance check indicator – light intensity + heavy intensity / indicator that visual range data follows; separator between temperature and dew point data. ACC altocumulus castellanus ACFT MSHP aircraft mishap ACSL altocumulus standing lenticular cloud ALP airport location point AO1 automated station without precipitation discriminator AO2 automated station with precipitation discriminator APRNT apparent APRX […]

The transcontinental lightplane flight of7-year-old Jessica Dubroff was strictly a made-for-TV event fromthe outset. Although billed as an attempt to “set the record”for the youngest pilot ever to make such a flight, there was norecord at stake here. Neither the National Aeronautics Associationnor even the Guiness Book of World Records recognizes such”youngest pilot” feats. When […]

Appendix F to Part 23: Test Procedure Acceptable test procedure for self-extinguishing materials for showing compliance with Secs. 23.853 ,23.855 and 23.1359. (a) Conditioning. Specimens must be conditioned to 70 degrees F, plus or minus 5 degrees, and at 50 percent plus or minus 5 percent relative humidity until moisture equilibrium is reached or for […]

I write this with considerable personal embarrassment, in thehopes that someone may learn from it. Sunriver, Oregon, is a lovely summer and winter resort communityabout 20 miles from Mt Bachelor, a popular ski spot. We renta condo there for a week every year, during the kids’ Spring break.I usually fly down with one or both […]