Reader Mail

Crashworthiness Common Sense Nice article Rick, I would add only one thing. Having owned a Stearman for many years I have had this discussion many times. Here in the Midwest in the fall, should you head for the ten-foot-tall corn fields or the four-foot-tall soy bean fields? Bean fields are tangled with vines and will […]

Mooney’s Last Act? At an average equipped sale price of $850,000 per aircraft, selling 30 airplanes per year to break even, would result in $25.5 million dollars in annual sales. An infusion of $150 million would take 6 years to pay back…and at zero investment profit for the sale of 180 Mooneys. Besides, six years […]

How to Look Less Worse When Tailwheel Flying I got a tailwheel endorsement in the 1980s in a Champ, and as I recall, the instructor told me, “You land a conventional gear exactly like a tricycle gear. Just keep the damn thing straight – which you ought to be doing anyway.” I’ve never changed a […]

Wanna Bomber Thrill Ride? Sign The Waiver Paul B…an interesting article. However, I question the term bombers in the statistics. Since 1982, the FAA has investigated 22 WWII era bomber accidents. That implies B-17’s, B-25’s, B-24’s, B-26’s. But it seems to me the total number of flyable WWII bombers would be hard pressed to total […]

Boeing 737 MAX Do we (meaning Boeing) know how often the MCAS was actually activated in airline service? It is my understanding that Boeing intended for MCAS activation to be exceedingly rare and “Invisible” to the PIC. I assume it is possible to determine how many times MCAS was activated world-wide and under what circumstances. […]

Are Pilot Skills Worse Than Ever? A lot of places where pilot skills are down are places where we won’t expect to see accident rates rise until much later. These are big flight schools pumping out new pilots for airlines to put in the right-hand seat. These pilots are not in command of aircraft themselves […]

What’s the Outlook for Icon? What amazes me is Icon is another example of aircraft design, certification, and manufacturing that has no conception of development / manufacturing cost, ROI, and an understanding of the aviation market they insist they are trying to serve. Where in the world is this kind of company leadership ineptness coming […]

Emergency: Declare Early, Declare Often I learned the power of saying things out-loud when I was in “the box” (a Redbird, but close enough for us GA-ers) and the instructor failed stuff on me in IMC and I had to actually use the words “I’m declaring an emergency”. I had never actually used the phrase […]

On Ash Scattering I enjoyed your article on ash scattering. I too was asked to scatter the ashes of a dear friend. A few weeks earlier there was a fatal ash-scattering mission in an adjoining state. It was fortuitous for me to read about it before my ash-flight. The 4-person crew was lost when they […]

Huckleberry Pancakes And Grassroots Aviation Success That was such a lovely piece to read. I was once, decades ago, a young earth bound person who lived, breathed for Aviation and Aviators. My bedroom walls were overflowing with really bad hand drawn pictures of Airplanes, cut out pictures from Flying Magazine and the best…a Marine Corps […]