Features

A popular misconception is that the Wright brothers, in addition to all of their other achievements, invented the airfoil. They didn’t. Sir John Cayley, an English engineer who also first identified the four forces of flight—lift, drag, thrust and weight—developed the cambered airfoil through detailed experimentation. His three-part work, On Aerial Navigation, published in 1809 and 1810, […]

Recently overheard on Washington Center frequency on an afternoon with plenty of thunderstorms in the vicinity: Center: “All you guys going into Raleigh, there will be a short delay. They’ve evacuated the tower. I’ll keep you posted. … I’d rather be in an airplane than a tower today.” Reid Ashe Winston‑Salem, North Carolina

I have often written that before you start building an airplane, you should set your requirements: What is the airplane designed to do? What design satisfies that goal? How does it need to be equipped to perform that mission? Once you have decided on a project for a specific mission, it is important to keep those […]

We’ve long maintained that weather poses the greatest risk on any given day to a proficient pilot flying a well-maintained aircraft. Presuming there’s adequate fuel aboard and the pilot knows how to ensure that it gets to the engine(s), it’s more likely than not that the flight will be completed pretty much as planned. Everything […]

Will Russia Really Leave The ISS? Thank you for a well written, experience-based commentary. Having had the great opportunity to work with a former NASA engineer for several years, I too see the team finding a workable solution to manage orbit, if it hasn’t already been designed and with plans sitting on the shelf. James […]

From the front lines, I’ve watched integrated avionics— retrofit and forward-fit—energize the avionics market for the past 15-plus years. The amount of technology packed into this equipment continues at the pace of the personal computer in its heyday. The vast amount of information now available should allow us to aviate, navigate and communicate with a […]

Keen to show off their new High-Wing variation of the well-regarded low-wing TSi, South African airframer Sling has done so in spectacular fashion by flying the prototype and production serial numbers one and two from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The trio landed at AirVenture yesterday afternoon. The epic jaunt was flown in daylight in legs up […]

Along the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea (PNG), a 750-mile-long river that snakes its way through jungles and swamps, only one thing stands between remote villagers and the stark reality of life-and-death medical events. Samaritan Aviation’s Cessna 206 on floats provides, at no cost, the most daring and extreme of medical evacuation services. Unique […]

There is one thing for certain about a week in Oshkosh in July – you WILL worry your way through at least one strong thunderstorm. And while there is little you can do if it decides to hail (historically unlikely), and a tornado (less historically unlikely) is the nightmare scenario that you can’t do much about: wind! […]

Many of life’s distractions are enjoyable, but cockpit distractions can have tragic consequences. For years, the NTSB has made “Eliminate Distractions” one of their Ten Most Wanted safety improvements.  In Ernest Gann’s Fate is the Hunter, he describes a night approach as a DC-2 First Officer while Captain Ross lit matches in front of Gann’s nose […]