features_old

Bad News For British Radio Users Britain’s Office of Communications (OFCOM) is proposing all users of U.K. airspace — i.e., airports and air-navigation service providers — should pay an “administrative incentive pricing” charge for using radio spectrum.According to the Association of European Airlines (AEA) the new pricing scheme is merely “a euphemism for tax” that […]

Recently, my aircraft management company SAMMwas managing the annual inspection of a client’s piston-powered, single-engine airplane at a well-known maintenance facility in Texas. The inspection found very little wrong with the airplane, and it looked like the annual would be completed quickly and inexpensively. Then, quite unexpectedly, the IA responsible for the annual went to […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Consumer magazine, Nov. 2007. Let’s say you need a part for your airplane — not a maintenance item like a Brackett foam filter or a spin-on oil filter, but something more exotic, say an elevator trim tab or a new wingtip. The immediate impulse is to order it new […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Safety, Feb. 2008. It’s an interesting phenomenon: As student pilots, we master VFR traffic patterns in just a few hours. After earning the private, we work on our instrument rating. Initially, nothing is quite so nerve wracking as a difficult approach. Then, our careers progress and we land that […]

Transient Hanger Fees On a recent trip from South Dakota to the West coast I was shocked to be charged fees like $65 per night to hanger a small, single-engine experimental in a large hanger belonging to the FBO. A few years ago, the FBOs would charge a minimal fee or no fee if fuel […]

It always fascinates me that general aviation airports somehow become ghost towns about 5:00 on Sunday afternoons, even if the weather is superb. This particular Sunday was no exception: The Pilot’s Lounge at the virtual airport was rapidly emptying. The students had headed home, and the only folks around were some of the flight school […]

This article originally appeared in IFR Refresher, Nov. 2007. Every pilot wants to avoid tough winter weather, especially icing conditions, even if that means delaying a flight or canceling one altogether. But some pilots are foolish enough to think that last-minute weather decisions will save them during a poorly-planned IFR approach. Poor IFR skills during […]

Original, Exclusive Videos from AVweb |Reader-Submitted & Viral Videos In case you missed any of our videos from the 2008 NBAA Convention & Trade Show in Orlando, Florida, you can watch all eight of them (plus two shorts you may find interesting) right here. Just use the arrows at the right and left sides of […]

This article originally appeared in IFR Refresher, March 2008. Pilots and controllers rely on each other to communicate unambiguously, especially when working together to complete an instrument approach. The rules of the game are supposed to be clear, yet somehow pilots and controllers continue to clash when an aircraft is in position to join the […]

Attendance at the National Business Aviation Association’s 61st convention in Orlando this week was down marginally according to early attendance figures released Wednesday. NBAA spokesman Dan Hubbard said 30,164 people attended the show, down about 600 from last year. “It’s 2 percent,” NBAA President Ed Bolen told AVweb. “This was a solid show.” There was […]