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For more than 20 years, administrations on both sides of the aisle have proposed some form of ATC privatization for reasons ranging from ideological purity to hoped-for cost savings and increased efficiency. There was never hard evidence to support the savings and efficiency argument, despite the FAA’s historic snail-like speed in accomplishing major revisions to […]

The morning fog rolled across the airport like a vast cotton blanket, smothering runways, parked airplanes and the airport terminal. Within minutes, it pushed up against the tower windows, trying to seal us inside like something out of Stephen King’s The Mist. We quickly flipped on the airport beacon and cut a new ATIS reflecting […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s web site at www.ntsb.gov. Final […]

Symptomless and pain free, high blood pressure is an insidious condition that can cause serious havoc to your body systems if left unattended. It’s item 18h on the Basic Med checklist. Even though you won’t be able to tell if your blood pressure becomes elevated, you’ll certainly know about the consequences of high blood pressure […]

Although a friend of mine in the Detroit area just told me it was so cold that he saw a dog frozen to a hydrant, there’s a rumor that spring—and its high winds—will be eventually put in appearance at airports north of the equator. Spring: that time of year when airport managers’ thoughts turn to […]

Whether for work or a heck of a lot of fun, if you’re in the market for a STOL/utility airplane—one that will let you commune with nature in the most rugged of backcountry airstrips as well as cruise at a reasonable speed and carry a little something—what’s out there and how do you choose among […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s web site at www.ntsb.gov. Final […]

One of the side effects of the implementation of BasicMed and the longest-running period of economic growth in our country’s history has been that quite a few pilots who stopped flying because of medical and/or economic concerns have decided they can return to the sky. For those affected, it’s splendid news. But the good news […]

While the recently enacted tax cut legislation has economists and deficit-hawks scratching their heads because it came during a time of full employment, at the height of the longest economic growth period in our country’s history, is expected to bump the economy by 0.08 to 0.12 percent annually for the next few years and drive […]

When an aircraft designer is faced with the problem of tailoring control surface hinge moments as well as the effectiveness of and force required to operate those surfaces, she or he has several available design tools. Two of the most effective are types of aerodynamic balances—the horn and the external-airfoil balance. Horn Balances The horn […]