Features

Throughout the 1980s, tandem two-seat homebuilt designs were firmly in the mainstream. Burt Rutan’s VariEze and Long-EZ were popular, and examples of Dick VanGrunsven’s RV-4 were showing up at Oshkosh in rapidly increasing numbers. Then came the RV-6, a side-by-side airplane that was destined to become the most successful kit airplane of all time. Everything […]

By Ron Wanttaja This story originally appeared in KITPLANES. Flying any aircraft—homebuilt or not—requires the pilot to be alert. The person at the stick has to have their brain firing on all cylinders. But occasionally they don’t. Sometimes the pilot is flying on the wrong medicine, legal or not. Sometimes the pilot’s body has unknown […]

At the end of a five‑hour final leg of a cross‑country trip from the West Coast to Michigan, I was very much ready to stop and stretch my legs. I was descending from 17,000 over Lake Michigan towards Traverse City. I broke out of clouds at the edge of Wisconsin and could see the other […]

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 […]

Report Calls For Multi-Pathway Approach To Mitigating Aviation Lead As a former FBO operator, airport manager, current E series powered Bonanza owner, A&P, drag racer, biker, and lover of all kinds of high-performance vehicles, myths die hard. Local dirt track racers would come over to the airport on Friday and Saturday night to buy 5 […]

We have all come to fear and respect thunderstorms. Probably the one element that visibly strikes fear in pilots and passengers alike is the lightning associated with thunderstorms. When not in IMC, it’s easy to see where the lightning is emanating from, and if you are a safe distance away. However, once in the clouds, […]

A few years back, we were three miles out from landing at our local towered airport, when we had the following exchange with our local tower: Tower: “Cirrus 12345, go around. Delta 1234, cleared to land.” We went around and lined up to land. At what seemed the very last minute, the tower called us […]

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 […]

Winter Flying? Really, Must We? Winter flying has its challenges, but so does summer flying. Given a choice between being too hot or too cold, I find it easier to build a fire than an ice cube. And I can always put on more clothing, but I can only take off so much. One of […]

A series of transitions defines every pilot’s life. For Bill Anton of Satanta, Kansas, retiring after 35 years as an ag banker coincided with maturing flying desires, “from cross-country and aerobatics to fun flying out in the boondocks.” Now 72, “I’m thinking of how many more years of good flying I might have left,” he […]