Features

“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always liked to make things, and I thought an airplane would be the ultimate project,” said Les Krumel of Moriarty, New Mexico, a mechanical engineer who recently retired as a civilian employee of the U.S. Air Force who worked on aerospace projects. That understatement defines his humble personality. […]

As Chief Flight Instructor of our flight school one of the responsibilities is to perform new engine break‑in flights. Recently, in preparation for the first flight on a newly installed remanufactured engine, I texted the tower chief with a brief explanation of what the mechanic and I wanted to do. We were going to fly […]

Fly long enough, and you’ll eventually find yourself on top of a broken or solid undercast, wanting to be beneath it. To get there, you either need to obtain an instrument clearance, find a hole, wait for one to appear or divert, perhaps far out of your way, to an area with better weather. If […]

Electric Aircraft And The Media Good article with salient and analogous points. You do that SO well. I think that most of your informed readers who take the time to expound on all these fictitious articles, claims or press releases — calling them “vaporware” — are smart enough to know that SOMETHING might come of […]

This maze of hallways is the archives of aviation’s greats—not the Stupid Pilot Tricks Repository. We’re awed by images of the Montgolfier brothers and their good sense to launch the world’s first flyable aircraft with a sheep, rooster and duck before stocking its basket with humans (who weren’t themselves). While they were brilliant, Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier […]

Controllers at New York TRACON are known for being all business and taking no prisoners. Likewise, “unable, remain on the airway,” is the typical reply to a request for a shortcut. I was about 80 miles from my destination, on the preferred routing, which involves a couple of victor routes and passage through two more […]

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 […]

Second Look: Why Light Sport Aircraft Suffer So Many Crashes It seems that the main issue for light sport comes down to perception versus reality. The original light sport concept was basically a larger version of ultralights. But, manufacturers immediately started to make them grown-up airplanes in a smaller package. And, the buying public agreed […]

Aviation is a numbers-oriented activity. Sure; we can more or less safely operate an aircraft by disregarding some of them, but if we intend to aviate with some degree of reliability and repeatability—not to mention professionalism—we need to do it precisely, which means using some metric against which to measure our performance and the airplane’s. […]

I was flying around Tampa, Florida, recently when I heard the following: N123: “Tampa Approach, Cessna 123. Ten out for Zephyrhills.” Tampa Approach: “Cessna 123, roger, advise weather.” N123: “Oh it’s clear and a million. Really splendid. Thanks for asking.” Andrew Doorey Chapel Hill, NC