Features

Diamond Rollover: Freak Accident Or A Design Flaw? Quite many years ago, I landed at a S. Fla airport with a thunderstorm rapidly approaching and very near the airport. I landed just fine and was cleared to taxi to the ramp that was approximately a mile away. I got about 1/3 of that distance when […]

Utility. It’s all about utility.  That’s why we buy any airplane when we don’t do it purely for fun. We want to go places, we want to go fast and we want to go when we want to go.  We buy speed. We work our whatsits off to get an instrument rating and pay tens […]

As a CFI, I recently had the opportunity to attend a Mooney Pilot Proficiency Program at KSMX, Santa Maria airport, up the coast from Los Angeles. We were told that we could do approaches—but no landings or touch and goes—at nearby Vandenberg Space Force Base (KVBG). We thought this would be a great opportunity. Once […]

You might have heard the old adage, “The flight cannot be cleared for departure until the gross weight of the paperwork exceeds that of the aircraft.” While cynical, this reference to all the required processes, rules, and regulations makes a good point. Regulations and procedures for pilots largely mirror those of ATC, but these might […]

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 […]

A Bucketful Of Blues Flying is an endeavor that is remarkably good at reminding you that you are not quite the Sky God you secretly imagine yourself to be. What I want to know is why are those perfect landings, the ones where you can barely feel the wheels spin up, only occur when there […]

We all know that the best way for an aviation enthusiast (especially a homebuilder) to watch the Reno Air Races is in person, with a pit pass, at Stead Field. Well this year, its understandable if you’re sitting at home somewhere within a reasonable flight of the Reno area, wondering if it is worth the […]

My friend had just completed his Pulsar XP kit, flew off the required hours, got it signed off, and asked me if we could fly to Oshkosh as a flight of two. We refueled in Jolliet, IL, and he took off first. The speedy Pulsar was quickly miles ahead of my Tripacer as we flew […]

It used to be that used Cessna 150s and 152s were budget buys, but like most piston singles in the current market, values for these durable two-placers—especially nicely upgraded models—have risen sharply. But once the big check has cleared, the right 150 or 152 shouldn’t break the operating budget thanks to its miserly fuel burn […]

When an instrument-rated pilot thinks of an approach, he or she likely pictures a so-called standard instrument approach procedure, or SIAP, the published approaches we all have come to know and “love.” A SIAP is described in FAR Part 97 and in published charting data available from the FAA and Jeppesen, for example. Standard approach […]