features_old

Cardenas: Muroc tower, Air Force Eight Zero Zero taxi instructions. Tower: B-twenty-nine Eight Zero Zero cleared Runway six. Winds out ofEast seven miles an hour. Cardenas: We cleared to roll? Tower: Roger, cleared to line up and roll. Swindell (B-29 flight Engineer): She’s all yours, Major. Cardenas: All right, Swindell? Cardenas: Rolling. B-29 left side […]

Staggerwings flock to Tullahoma, Pipers fly to Lock Haven and antiques gather in Blakesburg, Iowa. Pietenpols have their own annual gathering at Brodhead, Wis., that draws, if not quantity, definitely quality and a passion from those who come to see these distinctive little homebuilts. For Pietenpol builders, going to Brodhead means the chance to actually […]

Although all kinds of sport flying are for fun rather than transportation, all you “power pilots” don’t know what fun is until you try soaring; it’s so quiet the instructor can hear his students cry. Soaring in a glider or sailplane is just pure joy. With the sophisticated aircraft of today that most of us […]

Numbersare very important in aviation. They help pilots answer constant questions like,”How much longer till we get home?” and “Whaddya mean your planecan’t carry this steamer trunk?” They help remind us of the differencesbetween, for example, a C205A and a C-5A, or between a PA-28-235 and aPA-28-236. They also tell us how fast (or slow) […]

Desired Track(DTK) #3:Headwork, Part One – (Articles – Oct 25 2001) Among other things, aviation can be referred to as a numbers game: heading,altitude, airspeed, distance, time. Fortunately, today’s cockpits have a lot ofequipment available to compute and display the important ones. But what’s behindsome of these numbers? How can we compute some of them […]

Mention “product liability” to most aviation professionals and you’ll almost surely provoke a torrent of comments about frivolous lawsuits and gold-digging passengers claiming emotional distress over some minor incident. In reality, the key issue in most product liability lawsuits is whether the accident was pilot-caused, machine-caused, or some combination — or as a lawyer might […]

Dear Pete: We met before we met. Around the gliderport, there’s a sort of “Pete wave” that washes around. There’s a little bit of you in the eye of every line boy, and an ounce of you on everyone’s tongue. You are beloved for your dry, gentle humor, and respected for your skill. Whether you […]

I had a nightmare the other night. Boy, I hate those things. In this one, I could “see” through the eyes of a new trainee. Weird huh? Anyway, this trainee comes strutting around the corner of the control room, full of vim and vigor, and the first thing he sees is this old beat-up guy […]

Thepreparation leading up to my first flight in a new aircraft design always renewsmy sense of adventure and stirs a bit of trepidation, as well. The promise ofsome new adventure, rooted in my hedonistic curiosity about airplanes, generallyoverwhelms any degree of anxiety attached to the coming flight. Nonetheless, arriving at the main gate of The […]

The events of the eleventh of September affected all of us deeply. The Pilot’s Lounge at the virtual airport became jammed that day and has remained so with pilots who have come together and try to sort out the myriad emotions that each felt. The attacks, the subsequent groundings and then the national suspicion of […]