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Glass Cockpits Go Ab Initio In last week’s AVweb (NewsWire, May 23) you quoted MTSU’s Paul Craig as saying, “The new [glass-cockpit] technology solves the two problems that make IFR different from VFR: 1) We can see through clouds, and 2) we can see where we are. With these two problems solved, what is the […]

This article is in response to a recent opinion piece regarding the insurability of flight schools conducting flight training for new Sport Pilots.First off, I could not agree more with the first few paragraphs of the previous letter: The new FAA rules for Sport Pilot and light sport aircraft (LSA) offer a new and very […]

Through my (hopefully not-quite-over) media career and my writing gigs with AVweb, I had the opportunity to meet and hang out with noted outdoorsman Tom Gresham. Gresham is an affable, self-deprecating fellow who lives in the small, north-Louisiana hamlet of Natchitoches. He is the son of Grits, of the mutton-chop sideburns and lengthy outdoor credentials […]

Chicago Tribulations It’s too funny that Mayor Daley would lament how his city doesn’t have any jets (NewsWire, May 16). He’s the one who literally kicked both the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard out of his city in the middle 1990s.I guess he doesn’t consider the F-16s in Madison, Wisc., close enough to […]

I‘ve been threatening to write this article for a while now and it’s as good a time as any. If you want to start an argument among pilots you only have to ask one little question: “Yeah, but what happens if you go NORDO?” If you read any aviation forums on the Internet, you know […]

General Aviation has seen an interesting and uncommon change recently: A new certificate is now available. Sport Pilot has been much-awaited, touted, and striven-for by many dedicated individuals and organizations whose goal was to help broaden the appeal of GA.Sport Pilot offers a new group of people the ability to participate in, help support, and […]

In a previous column I called for the need to change the way we train pilots and I suggested that scenario-based training (SBT) would be a way to meet the needs of the growing numbers of pilots who use their airplanes as transportation tools without leaving behind the purely recreational flyer. (After all, somebody has […]

D.C. Intrusion AVweb Wrote (NewsWire, May 12): “Errant Pilots Cause Washington Scare” While I enjoy the AVweb magazine, I think the proper headline should be, “35,000 People Terrorized By The Federal Government.”On Wednesday, 35,000 people were needlessly told that their lives were in danger and to run wildly into the streets because an incompetent government […]

It was a sodden, April Saturday afternoon in the Pilot’s Lounge at the virtual airport. The first unseasonably warm days of spring had brought out the tulips, hyacinths and optimistic pilots in droves. Frustratingly, on this weekend the weather had reverted to the precipitation that has been reputed to bring flowers in the subsequent month. […]

User Fees This week’s Question is missing one important option (QOTW, May 4). I would support user fees in the form of license and registration fees if they provide me with some level of control of the FAA.Proposal: Replace the FAA with a non-profit corporation with a volunteer board of directors that is elected by […]