FBOs

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. […]

It is nice to once again find myself within the confines of my trusty 767 cockpit. A lamb’s wool seat cover caresses my ample behind, as I sit ensconced in my little home away from home.This home has its advantages over my earthbound abode. I can get coffee just for the asking up here, people […]

Editor’s Note: Because of ongoing controversy with the Beech T-34 wing spars, John Deakin updated this 1999 column in May 2005. His updates are [bracketed in red], but the entire column is even more relevant today than it was then. Ground all Bonanzas?Well, no, not immediately, and all parties will deny that this is even […]

If you’ve ever been to the South, you might have heard the expression, “It’s fixin’ to come up a bad cloud.” It’s just our quaint way of saying that storm clouds are brewing. If you’ve ever flown in the South, you know when we say, “A bad cloud,” we mean bad. Big, bad thunderstorms are […]

From time to time, we who frequent the Pilot’s Lounge here at the virtual airport put on an evening seminar in which presentations are given on topics of interest to us. Attendance varies, but is usually large enough to fill most of the chairs we borrow from the You Stab ‘Em, We Slab ‘Em Funeral […]

The sun had gone down, the evening air show was over and it was time to for all tired pilots to bed down in their campsites at the Sun ‘n Fun campground in Lakeland, Fla.After a full day of roast-corn eating, trade-fair attending and craning our necks to a 45-degree up-angle, you’d think that everyone […]

Seeing as I’m supposed to be on vacation this week, I thought I’d write about a subject that I enjoy: vectoring. I guess that doesn’t make you (the pilot) feel all warm and fuzzy inside, does it? Knowing that controllers enjoy vectoring you all over the sky for spacing when you just want to go […]

After my last column on how to pass a checkride, one of you wrote in and asked for a column on how pilot examiners are chosen by the FAA and what kind of training and experience is required to be a pilot examiner. I thought that was a really good idea, and so here we […]

It was a normal weekend morning in the Pilot’s Lounge at the virtual airport; students were either exulting or bemoaning flights they had just completed, a few pilots were debating where they should go for their high-dollar hamburgers and a couple of airplane owners were deep in discussion over the operating costs of their steeds. […]

Retirement parties, like funerals, get more plentiful as your life and career nears their respective ends. Much like funerals, these retirement fetes are sometimes the last opportunity to pay last respects to old friends.Leaving the airline almost always means literally leaving your flying friends. This is because a major airline’s flight crews are usually made […]