FBOs

I don’t get DCA layovers as often as I used to when I flew the MD-88. The 767 doesn’t get to our nation’s capital that often — at least from our base — and I haven’t been in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum for quite a few years.There usually isn’t enough time during a […]

You’ve heard it since you were a little kid — we all have. The old saw “practice makes perfect” has been drummed into us by mothers, piano teachers and just about anyone else who was trying to teach us anything. I’d be willing to bet that at some time or another, a flight instructor has […]

Recently, while conducting yet another tour of Atlanta Center, I noticed a pilot’s fascination with the D-side. He just couldn’t quite figure out what the D-side was doing. We had walked over to a different Area than mine to take a look at his home airport. It just happened to be quite busy.As a matter […]

Old Hack was the instigator. Because of him the Pilot’s Lounge departed the virtual airport in mid-September, and headed for the National Air Races at Reno Stead Airport, north of Reno, Nev., for a serious fix of airplanes flying very fast and very low, while making noise that hits a person right in the gut […]

Pilot lounges are happy places containing the most entertaining bulletin boards available in the aviation world.You can tell a lot about the state of the world and what time of year it is by just looking over what is for sale on the wall of a lounge. When you see motorboats, airplanes, and expensive motorcycles […]

You know it’s bad when you walk into the control room and hear a controller yell, “I want a tracker!” It really wasn’t what he said so much as how he said it. The high side was trying to work all the East Coast traffic around Tropical Storm Gaston and it was getting ugly. A […]

The shadows were lengthening outside the window of the Pilot’s Lounge here at the virtual airport. From the tattered old lounge chair, I could see that the activity on the ramp was spooling down into “tucking them away for the night” mode. The flight school trainers were being fueled by the line crew and moved […]

The ALPA meeting was over and we were in the coffee shop with a bunch of the retirees that had come to see if they still had a retirement. With all the recent turmoil in the business, many airlines had tried to do away with retirement benefits and some had succeeded. Lucky for us they […]

A couple of recent events have compelled me to write this article. It’s going to be a little different than my standard fare. You may need to shift into a different gear, so be forewarned.As most of you are aware, I’m getting to be a short-timer. I’ve got just a little over two years left […]

A lot of folks have been saying that the training system is broken. It is and it has been for several years. The advent of technically advanced aircraft has just made that breakdown more apparent. Now, with the coming of the very light jets (VLJ) there is much hand-wringing about “amateurs” in the flight levels. […]