Features

Some—perhaps even many—pilots of Experimental aircraft never operate their artfully homebuilt aircraft on any runway surface not considered “improved,” meaning asphalt or concrete. That’s certainly fine, and a lot may never desire to do so either. But that doesn’t mean they can’t. With some common sense, proper planning and following the right procedures, many homebuilts […]

During my high school years, I got a lift home from a friend. Approaching my neighborhood, I said, “Turn left here.” I expected my friend to be a sensible driver, spot the clearly marked street a few hundred feet ahead, decelerate, merge into the designated left-turn lane, look for traffic, and smoothly turn into my […]

By Jonathan and Julia Apfelbaum Have you ever had project creep? The gradual cumulation of ideas and what-ifs that makes a straight path meander is all but guaranteed to add time and complexity. But it can also lead to a much better end result. Witness the evolution of Allen Floyd’s Long-EZ, Excalibur. Allen, who hails […]

Recently, I took my Piper Arrow out for a late afternoon Bay tour from Oakland to the Golden Gate Bridge. The NORCAL frequency was unusually quiet. Only one other airplane, a Cessna, checked in. The friendly controller gave him instructions that contained a number of semi‑official local waypoints. The instruction went something like, “Stay north […]

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 […]

SpaceX Starship Explodes After A Near Perfect Landing What’s being missed here… especially by this community… is really more interesting than the landing difficulties. All three of these flights have successfully demonstrated using areo surfaces to glide this massive booster back to a precise spot on the surface. That was the major unknown for SpaceX […]

Most of us spend our time aloft droning along in straight-and-level flight. For the typical pilot, turns are reserved for the traffic pattern or flying an approach, and occasionally for entering a holding pattern or performing a course reversal. And we rarely exceed 30 degrees of bank. On one hand, that’s okay, since our relative […]

It was a number of years ago, so it’s OK to tell the story now … Chicago Approach was famous for a lack of tolerance for VFR pilots. One controller would say things like, “Flight Following? Yeah; here ya go: turn heading 270 and call back when you’re in Iowa. I don’t have any time […]

These pages regularly urge new private pilots to go on to earn their instrument rating. Especially if you ever want to use a personal airplane for regular, reliable transportation, the rating is pretty much mandatory. If you’re content to only fly on good-weather days in search of expensive hamburgers and to abandon the peace-of-mind the […]

Spaceflight In The Age Of Cute VERY cool to find these “insider” things. I’ve been lucky enough to meet and speak with several astronauts and talk with them in enough depth to see not only how focused they are, but several “insider” personal anecdotes. We lionize our heroes and ascribe superhuman attributes to them, but […]