Flight Planning

Gettysburg, Penn., has a nice little municipal airport (W05). Its lone runway, oriented 06/24, is 3100 x 60 feet of well-paved asphalt and located just a couple of miles northwest of the historic town’s tourist attractions, and one of the most important battlegrounds in American history. Wyoming’s Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport (48U) is a […]

Boeing Buys ForeFlight Beyond disappointing. Foreflight is going to get caught up in a corporate structure that will bleed all the imagination and energy out of this very important company. I certainly can’t judge the owners for “cashing” out but rest assured Boeing will raise prices and will not add “value”. What value, what strength […]

On a particularly clear day I was practicing commercial maneuvers west of Sioux Falls when I heard a King Air check in with Approach. He was told to descend to 4000 feet and expect the visual for Runway 15 when he had the field in sight. King Air: “Five three golf we’re goin’ to four, […]

Boeing announced on Wednesday that it has acquired aviation app company ForeFlight. ForeFlight has been working in partnership with Jeppesen—also owned by Boeing—for the last two years to offer Jeppesen’s aeronautical data and charts on ForeFlight mobile platforms. Although the exact terms of the deal have not been disclosed, Boeing says the ForeFlight and Jepessen […]

ICON’s St. Louis Demonstration Flights The St. Louis demo flights by an Icon sales rep caused quite a stir in the local media. What was not reported by you is the aircraft was operating between two heavily trafficked bridges that are only four thousand feet apart. The bridges (over one hundred feet above the water) […]

The FAA has partnered with drone operations software company Kittyhawk to redesign the agency’s B4UFLY mobile app for recreational unmanned aircraft systems (UAS/drone) operators. According to the FAA, the new version, which is scheduled to launch in April 2019, will be aimed at improving user experience. Until the new app is released, the FAA says […]

The best way to shorten an international airline flight isn’t necessarily to knock yourself out—in the case of one Virgin Atlantic flight from Los Angeles to London, the trick is to catch a whopping big tailwind. Around 10:30 p.m. on Monday night, as the Virgin 787 cruised along at 35,000 feet, it posted an 801-MPH […]

Blame it on YouTube. Sailors have an affliction they call “bigger boat disease” or “one-foot-itis,” and I was starting to feel the rumblings of the aviator’s version. I had been flying and enjoying my Fisher FP-404 biplane for the past three years but was starting to bump into its limitations: low speed, modest climb rate, […]