Features

Over the years, I’ve cancelled several planned flights, answering the go/no-go question in the negative. Many other flights got rescheduled and were completed—either earlier or later than the original plan—while only a handful were attempted but never completed, at least not in keeping with the original plan. Weather has been the most frequent reason for […]

With the easing of pandemic travel restrictions commercial flights have increased, seemingly often with crews not necessarily familiar with local procedures. Case in point: Delta 575, from Albany, NY, to Atlanta, departing Runway 19 last June: DL 575: “Albany Departure, Delta 575 climbing through 1500, runway heading.” Albany Departure: “Delta 575, turn right heading 340, […]

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 […]

Go Get Lost Where were you Paul when I needed your humor the most? That would have been during the pre GPS era of the 1970s searching for that elusive first strip 6 degrees south of the Equator in central Africa. The end of dry season in those climes is characterized by clear, visibility 1 […]

It’s almost a cliché. The buyer was in a hurry to get an airplane for his flight school. He found the model he wanted for a price that fit his budget. It was 1,500 miles away. It had just come out of an annual inspection, so he bought it sight unseen, with no prebuy examination. […]

We were flying in our Cessna Cardinal RG from Poughkeepsie, NY, to Norwood, MA. On board were my wife, me, and our cat, Amie. The weather was clear but windy. The local forecast for the Boston (Norwood) area was winds 30 blowing to 60 MPH. Approaching Norwood, I tuned in the tower and checked in. […]

A lot of pixels and ink have been spilled over the last several decades discussing the ever-increasing automation in our cockpits and the challenges thereof. Some of those spills involve detailed directions on how to operate a specific piece of avionics equipment while others focus on the larger picture of how the equipment and the […]

Is There Room For Two Aviation Fuels? […]The market is responding to a very confused end user. Just look at the responses on this thread plus the recent unleaded avgas poll. Some pilots, aircraft owners, and many mechanics swear they can determine “engine damage” in aircraft engines that use non-ethanol auto-gas or mogas. That “engine […]

I didn’t buy this GlaStar intending to commit significant resources to the engine in the first year. Indeed, few of us intend to do that—but it happens. Who does that? But I always knew it was a possibility. My GlaStar’s Lycoming O-320-E3D, originally in a Piper Warrior, had seen service in three airplanes, completed a […]

Scanner chatter heard near Wisconsin Dells: “Madison Approach, Cirrus one-niner-niner-Echo-Echo checking in at 5,000.” [Scanner can’t pick up Approach, but controller apparently gave the altimeter setting at the Dells.] Cirrus pilot says with a straight face, or so it would seem: “Two-niner-niner-niner for niner-niner-Echo-Echo.” Tom Enwright