Reader Mail

Power Lines Threaten Private Strip I live in Ontario and own a small strip with a hanger. Five years ago a cell phone company tried to force a tower into my circuit area. I forced them to move outside my private zone. We have a rule laid out by the Canadian government that states you […]

British Airway’s Three-Engine Incident AVweb wrote (NewsWire, Jun. 12): “British authorities say flying a 747 on three engines over the polar icecap was the right thing to do and now they’re going to try to convince the FAA of that. As AVweb reported, the British Airways flight from LAX to London lost an engine after […]

Dakota Breakup near ACY I fly this area regularly. So the interest in this accident is high.To correct your report (NewsWire, Jun. 5): Weather at the time of the accident was far from benign. Looks like this poor fellow got upset in hard IMC.The sky at the time of the accident was 700 overcast. Here […]

IFR Pilot Complacency Re: Probable Cause #7 (May 28):AOPA’s Air Safety Foundation did a study of fatal accidents that showed IFR pilots were responsible for a disproportionate amount of fatalities. In my opinion, they tend to become too comfortable with someone else (ATC) watching out for them. As a long cross-country VFR pilot, I don’t […]

NASA Langley’s Many Wind Tunnels Thanks for the article, “Blended-Wing Prototype Nears Flight Test” (NewsWire, May 11), about model testing of what the article called “the X-48B, an advanced-concept, fuel-efficient blended-wing body, in the Langley wind tunnel in Hampton, Va.” But please note that NASA Langley’s historic Full-Scale Tunnel — important as it is after […]

Kudos to ATC I would like to commend the tower personnel at Smyrna, Tenn., (MQY) for the excellent service given on May 6. EAA was holding their Sport Pilot Seminar there and the Tower made every effort to accommodate these smaller and slower aircraft.My primary reason for writing is that I was flying a powered […]

GAP Diesel Engine A lot has been written (from 1998 onward) and promised (from 2000 onward) about the new diesel project that was a joint venture between NASA and Teledyne and that would result into an aircraft engine of the new age.From NASA it seems to be very successful, as all goals were met, but […]

747 House So the FAA is worried people might think the home is a crash site and it has to be somehow marked to show it isn’t (NewsWire, Apr. 24)? Do they have the same concerns about the old airliners and collections of pipes used by airport firefighters for training? I’m sure what looks like […]

Scud Runner I used to invest in towers. I remember the first tower I had built. It was completed in Sept. ’86 and just missed the Atlanta sectional revision date. It did not make the chart until the next cycle! Its construction did change a MOCA altitude so the IFR guys were alerted. I knew […]

F-22 Airshow Debut You state that this is the first time the F-22 has traveled to a civilian airshow (NewsWire, Apr. 10). In fact, the F-22 did a flyby at the Centennial of Flight celebration in 2003 at Kitty Hawk, N.C. Specifically, the flyby occurred on Dec. 16, one day before the actual anniversary. I […]