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Are you attending EAA AirVenture 2007 in Oshkosh? If so, stop by the AVweb booth and say hello! We’ll be signing people up at booths 1005-1008 in the vendor hangars throughout the show – and we’d love to meet our readers. We’ll be producing news reports live from the booth, and some of our most […]

This article originally appeared in Light Plane Maintenance, Jan. 2005. This article will cover things that cause problems with propeller governor systems and how to diagnose them. Often, governor problems don’t give any warning until something obvious happens, such as the inability to hold selected RPM, the propeller surges or seeks an RPM, or is […]

I‘d driven out to the virtual airport before dawn on a Saturday morning. It only took moments to slip into the Pilot’s Lounge, load the coffee machine and push the start button, leave the box of fresh doughnuts I’d brought next to it and hurry out to where the Great Lakes was tied down. I […]

When one considers the dramatic evolution of aviation support facilities of the 1920s to present day Lockheed Martin Automated Flight Service Stations (AFSS), it is difficult to fathom how the job was ever accomplished. To give the reader a sense of the extremity of Lockheed Martin’s undertaking of the government’s largest contract with private industry, […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Safety, May 2005. Taking risks is something we do every day; in the shower, on the Interstate or on an approach to minimums. The ways in which we manage those risks often determine whether we’ll be around to take them again, or if some other outcome will intervene. Astronauts, […]

As many of you know, I’ve owned, flown and maintained a Cessna T310R for the past 20 years, powered by a pair of Teledyne Continental Motors TSIO-520-BB engines. I’ve achieved remarkable longevity from the cylinders on these engines — 10 out of 12 are still originals with more than 4000 hours in service so far.But […]

NATCA Pushing For Carr? It looks like NATCA is organizing a little bit of support for their former president (Question of the Week, Jun. 21). If he can get everyone a 30% increase in my paycheck, I’ll change my vote …Bill Lukens The FSS Mess Copies of this article (The Pilot’s Lounge, Jun. 18) should […]

Our airline had come out of bankruptcy and all of us were still alive. Poorer financially, yes, but wiser to the ways of the world and just how much credence to give to the promises of politicians and managers from both sides of the labor/management divide.With any reorganization, changes are bound to come. Our pilot […]

This article originally appeared in IFR Refresher, May 2006. If your flying is limited to Part 91, you may not realize that operators who fly for hire, like Part 135 and Part 121 carriers, must follow different rules when it comes to flying approaches.One of those is that a pilot flying an aircraft for hire […]

In my last column we covered where I think pilots of light piston aircraft should be looking during takeoff and the initial-climb phases of flight, say to 1,000 feet AGL. In my opinion, virtually all attention should be outside the cockpit unless there are no outside references available to keep the airplane upright, climbing, and […]