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GA Security In Practice … Pilot Crashes After ATC Denies Access How much longer will the safety of government officals be put over Americans? The system pre-9/11 was there for our safety. You got in trouble, you called ATC and the system became yours to help you get down safely. Now, courtesy of Homeland Security, […]

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Cessna Owner and Pipers Magazines. My wife, Kate, has been taking flying lessons on-and-off for a few years now. She’s been taking every opportunity to practice, so was up and out at the airport bright and early one Sunday while yours truly slept in.When the phone rang, I […]

Don’t miss Part Two of Rick’s survival guide.The shards of the smashed piggy bank crunch as you reposition yourself while drawing lines on the sectionals spread out on the living-room floor. You are going to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2003. You’re working on the route so you can make it there and back as efficiently as […]

Updated August 24, 2003, with information on new PLBs from Pains Wessex. I was ferrying my antique open-cockpit biplane — a rare Flaglor High Tow — from my home base in Driggs, Idaho (just west of Jackson Hole) to the maintenance shop at Idaho Falls. That’s about 45 nautical miles, which doesn’t sound like much […]

SBD Checkout I was very interested in the checkout story, and how different mine was in 1943. I had just finished operational training in Avengers and transferred to Marine Corps Air Station, El Toro, and was told, “Forget the Avenger, you will fly the SBD.” So with only a cockpit checkout and a tower clearance […]

This article originally appeared in the July 2002 issue of IFR Magazine and is reprinted here by permission. Mnemonics, such as GUMP or CIGAR, are popular in aviation, although one of the most useful when approaching a terminal area might be hard to relate to: WCRR, or West Coast Rail Road. The only relationship between […]

Most days when I come home from work, no matter how bad things are (and they usually are), I take a few moments to calm down and take stock of my life. Invariably, I come to the conclusion that I’ve got it good. I’ve got a good home, a good wife (a great one actually), […]

There are no more than a handful left. You can count the ones that are currently airworthy on one hand, and the ones that are flying regularly can be counted on the fingers needed to hold a good cigar. Of the more than 5900 built between 1940 and 1944, that’s all there are in the […]

I‘ve always liked Grumman airplanes. They range from the funky (the Duck and the Widgeon) to the awesome (Bearcat). What does that have to do with the Gulfstream? The lineage, and history. Grumman built the first Gulfstream, a Gulfstream I (a twin turboprop). Over the last 40 years the company has gone through the now-common […]

Question of the Week — Kit Planes vs. Production A previous AVmail listed advantages of factory-built planes over homebuilt planes, including: 5. Best Re-Sale Value 6. Best for Over-All EconomyI disagree at least in part with both of these assertions. It isn’t fair that a builder might spend 3000 hours on a plane and sell […]