features_old

Buyinga first airplane is every bit as much of a thrill for most people as buying a first car.Unfortunately, most first-time airplane buyers approach their purchase very much the sameway as they do when shopping for an automobile. Typically, they first decide how much theycan afford to spend on an airplane – it might be […]

Nobody’s ever accused me ofbeing an early-adopter when it comes to aviation. I’m unabashedly skeptical aboutaeronautical innovations until they’ve been proven in the field for years. When Mobil AV-1was being touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread, I stuck with my Aeroshell W100.When Cermicrome cylinders were all the rage, I stuck with nitrided steel […]

Castle Airport, in California’s Central Valley, is the home of a superbaviation museum and a few other attractionswhich make it worthy of a day-trip by general aviation pilots, and especially those withan interest in military aviation history. The airport is located next to the town ofAtwater, north of Merced, making it an easy afternoon trip […]

Here’s the concept: Some terrorists have a gripe with the UnitedStates. Terrorists are in the business of hijacking airliners, and as any terrorist worthhis Semtex knows, there is one airliner without equal: Air Force One. And as long as youare going to hijack Air Force One, you may as well do it while the president […]

As a pilot of 38 years experience, I have watched variousnavigation systems of varying degrees of reliability come and go. The trend in generalaviation during recent years has been for everyone to jump on the GPS bandwagon. Hundredsof millions have been spent to install GPS receivers in aircraft of all types, worldwide.It’s a great system. […]

In 1997, the National Transportation Safety Board asked major participants in the investigation to submit their findings and recommendations. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), The Boeing Company, and US Airways all submitted lengthy reports, the full text of which are available here. We were fascinated by the diversity of findings among these three parties, […]

US AIRWAYS PARTY SUBMISSION OF US AIRWAYS, INC.TO THENATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD USAIR FLIGHT 427SEPTEMBER 8, 1994ALIQUIPPA, PENNSYLVANIADCA-94-MA-076SUBMITTED SEPTEMBER 30, 1997 TABLE OF CONTENTS POST-HEARING SUBMISSION OF US AIRWAYS. INC. USAir Flight 427 Crash Near Aliquippa, Pennsylvania September 8, 1994 I. INTRODUCTION The purpose of this submission is to provide the National Transportation Safety Board […]

91.527 Operating in icing conditions.    (a) No pilot may takeoff an airplane that has –       (1) Frost, snow, or ice adhering to any propeller, windshield, or powerplant installation or to an airspeed, altimeter, rate of climb, or flight attitude instrument system;       (3) Any frost adhering to the wings or stabilizing or control surfaces, unless that […]

The full textof the FAA’s Final Rule amending Part 61 of the FARs is available in itsentirety here on AVweb in both HTMLand PDF formats, as is the rathersubstantial list of eleventh-hour correctionsthat the FAA published just days before the new rule became effective. The intent of the rewrite is to clarify and simplify the […]

Date: 25-Jul-97 18:59:17 Subject: Bose ANR Rival From: Rob Morgan (robmorg@bellatlantic.net) To: All I just bought a new ANR headset that is the closest thing to the Bose that I have ever seen or heard. After reading the review of the LightSPEED “20K” ANR headset on AVweb, I ordered a pair. They arrived today, so […]