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The end of a not very long day. One leg from SFO to home at the end of a four-day safari and we were almost officially at the end of our week.Humping our suitcases out of the luggage rack and with our flight kits dragging them to the front door, we paused only to hook […]

User Fees We have user fees: Gas tax provides millions based on usage (NewsWire, Jan. 30); meanwhile they squander … $75 million on questionable rehab at MKC. Plenty of money; let’s have some accountability instead of having a tax on a tax.John Grissinger Retired at 32? It’s a little unusual to be a “retired” Marine […]

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in Twin & Turbine, May 2005, and is reprinted here by permission. Pilots are generally pretty savvy about the weather. We can decode METARs and TAFs, get satellite weather pictures, and understand NEXRAD radar images. Most of us even remember how to read winds aloft, constant pressure analysis, and […]

On January 1, 2006, Warren “Chip” Jones replaced Don Brown as the Facility Safety Representative of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) at Atlanta Center. Don will continue his work as a Safety Representative for NATCA while he prepares for his upcoming retirement. Don’s column this month is his advice letter to Chip. Dear […]

Killer Kites Re: Hitting a kite (NewsWire, Jan. 23):I was the Captain on a B727-200 inbound to LAX Runway 25R several years ago and on short final we noticed a kite flying just short of the approach end of the runway and could not avoid it without causing a traffic conflict. We continued the approach […]

Like many pilots and aircraft owners, I’ve wondered why our engines are so damn expensive. I mean, on a horsepower-per-dollar basis, they’re way behind it. In a day when $30,000 does well to buy you a new 200-hp engine — for $150/hp — other forms of propulsion start to look pretty good. Heck, you can […]

Sport Planes With the Question of the Week being about sport aircraft (QOTW, Jan. 12), I found this suiting. I live in Mount-Hope, Ontario, Canada, a small town just outside of Hamilton (CYHM). There is a sport plane (here called an “advanced ultralight”) flight school starting out there. The school is run by Mike Rhora […]

One of the nice things about the Pilot’s Lounge at the virtual airport is that I get to stay in touch with some very interesting pilots. One of my favorite people on the planet is a guy I’ve flown with off and on for over 20 years. Among other things, he is considered to be […]

Batteries are the Rodney Dangerfields of aviation: They get no respect. We let them sit unused for weeks at a time and then expect them to crank our engine. We deep-discharge them by forgetting to turn off the master switch and then jump-start our airplane to go flying, subjecting the battery to a punishing rate […]

ATC Pay Raise Just a note of clarification on your article on the FAA pay raise (NewsWire, Jan. 9): The 3.1 percent you stated in the article is not the OSI (organizational success increase), but the COLA (cost of living adjustment) for 2006. All federal employees received this raise. The OSI raise, paid in full […]