Reader Mail

Oshkosh: Remember, We Haven’t Done This For Two Years I’ve flown into Oshkosh several times–and flying a turboprop, most of them have been IFR. Even cancelling some distance out and proceeding VFR is not a good option–trying to mix it up with aircraft of far differing speed capabilities–won’t do THAT again! IFR arrivals (IF you […]

Keep Up The Good Fight Great article, Tarrance. I flew 35 years for American/USAirways and 17 years with Navy Reserves. The controllers always helped me, if I explained to them what I needed. Once I was in a holding pattern with about 7 company planes ahead of me and was getting ready to divert due […]

What To Do About UFOs? Change The Name After 47 years and 28,000 hours of flying, I’ve never had an encounter but I flew with two different airline pilots who had. One pilot was in a modern fighter during his encounter. He described to me in detail the performance and capabilities of the object, which […]

FAA Wants To Add Cardinals To Cessna Spar AD The proposed AD covers all Cardinals ever built. Though the 177 carry-through spar is similar to the 210 spar design, the 210 is a much heavier aircraft with greater potential for stress fatigue. As far as I have been able to glean from the NTSB fatal […]

Take A Seat In Fantasy’s Front Row Great article. Enjoyed it immensely…as both a pilot who was introduced to GA via a CAP L-16 and an owner of a 63 Studebaker Lark. As I went nostalgic, I began to think about entry and egress of any airplane, GA or commercial…and have come to a startling […]

Pilot Deviations Years ago, while flying for a regional and in ATL Center airspace (it was a very busy time of day) we were handed off to the next controller. As we switched frequencies, I heard the controller basically yelling at another (major) air carrier, based in ATL. “I told you to turn RIGHT to […]

Solar Impulse Lead Partners With Electric Seaplane Venture Bravo on the collaboration. It’s a great team as any battery improvement this partnership offers will be tested in a real world, short haul, aviation environment. Battery technology is rapidly improving. I see it from the RC model realm to some very heavy hitters in the auto […]

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things As an A&P of over 50 years experience, I URGE your non-A&P readers to stay away from cylinder base nuts and don’t go buying cylinder base wrenches to see if things are tight. Mike Busch has a LOT to say about this sort of thing and even […]

Reminder: PIC Authority Is Absolute Years ago, I recall on my second student cross country into a controlled airport with parallel runways. I was on final in a Cherokee about a mile from touchdown. Suddenly the controller instructed me to do a left dog leg to land on #L runway. I was extremely uncomfortable doing […]

Cessna’s Perfect Timing On The SkyCourier I like the SkyCourier. It strikes me as being “very Cessna”. Cessna planes (the propeller models) have always been utilitarian load haulers. While the Comanche pilots pontificate on speed, and the Bonanza owners brags luxury and control feel, while the Mooney has efficiency … the Cessna pilots talk useful […]