Features

A Good FOD Walk Spoiled Paul’s comment about playing the fool made me smile. Many years ago during a surprisingly pleasant afternoon, I was invited to fly a friend’s Ercoupe. I was fond of Ercoupes, their pleasant demeaner, the wonderful visibility, and the freedom of open cockpit flying, and wasted little time in pulling it […]

Eyeball the typical proposal for a modern avionics installation and you might consider scaling the job back to include used avionics. But sourcing the equipment—especially more advanced gear—is challenging and risky. We’ve seen our share of buyers get stung by what initially seemed like a smoking deal, but in the end they paid as much […]

On a recent trip from Illinois to Arkansas, we overheard the following exchange: Razorback Approach: “Cessna Two Three Tango, Razorback Approach. Have you changed your destination from Houston, Texas?” Cessna 23T: “Razorback Approach, Cessna Two Three Tango. That’s a negative. Destination is still Houston.” Approach (chuckling): “Well Cessna Two Three Tango, on your current heading […]

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 […]

Suddenly Chatty Air Force Sending A Message Back in 1965, not long after President Johnson made the SR71 “public”, I was in high school in Fort Worth, Texas, home of Carswell AFB. The base was home for squadrons of B-52s and the supersonic B-58 “Hustlers”. We routinely saw both leaving in the morning for missions […]

At workweek’s end, winding down only to wind back up might seem antithetical to that hungering for a few days’ break. But for Mike Silvernagle, this routine makes perfect sense. The responsibilities of managing his construction business actually compel him to welcome the end of the typical workweek with yet another set of projects. The […]

Right after World War II, manufacturers of light aircraft assumed servicemen returning from overseas might want to learn to fly, and they were right. The sweet spot for this growing market was four seats, 150-HP and fixed tricycle landing gear. Cessna answered the call with the phenomenally successful Cessna 172. Piper’s response was the PA-28-140 […]

As I neared retirement, I flew every week from the Olive Branch, MS airport (KOLV) to my farm airstrip and soon-to-be new home in East Tennessee. KOLV is a small but busy airport under the Memphis International Class B Mode C veil and I always filed IFR. My weekly routine was to depart KOLV on […]

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 […]

Roll The Trucks I’ve declared emergency 3 times in my 20 years in the Pt. 135 business. Twice as PIC with smoke in cabin and once as SIC with flap failure. Never once did I get asked to file a report even though the trucks were rolled. Of course, my chief pilot handled reports to […]