Flight Safety

The FAA has issued an emergency AD mandating the immediate inspection of the left-hand elevator auxiliary spar on De Havilland DHC-3 Otters a month after an Otter floatplane crashed in Washington State, killing all 10 people onboard. The AD was issued Oct. 4 after “multiple recent reports of cracks” in the spar, the FAA said. “The […]

Often, the word “front” raises anxiety and apprehension in aviation meteorology. It carries the possibility of showers and thunderstorms, signals a change in the weather regime, and means the distinct possibility of a busted forecast. Thankfully there’s nothing to fear. Fronts are now well understood—computer models have become excellent at handling the underlying air masses that […]

The Flying Musicians Association (FMA) is open for nominations for its 2023 FMA Solo program for high school junior and senior music students who have an interest in aviation. Now entering its ninth year, the program provides scholarships for flight training through first solo along with assistance in obtaining flight training materials and gear. Nominations, […]

The Allied Pilots Association is opposing Congressional moves to allow Boeing to duck an upgrade to the crew alerting system in two models of the 737 MAX that have yet to be certified. According to Reuters, the union, which represents 15,000 American Airlines pilots, says Boeing needs to bring a legacy system from its oldest […]

I hit a bird once. I was flying a Piper Arrow II, on short final, with landing gear and full flaps extended, when I saw the bird ahead of the airplane. It was maneuvering and, from my perspective, flew in a circle as we neared each other, then disappeared under the left wing. I heard […]

There’s a performance chart for every basic phase of flight. Pilots use them to determine how fast they can fly, for how long and how much runway they’ll use doing it, among other things. The tables, graphs and charts in the performance section of your typical personal airplane’s flight manual or operating handbook purport to […]

Air France has relaunched its cadet pilot program and it’s a pretty straightforward deal for those who make the cut and the subsequent cuts. After what the airline calls a “rigorous selection process,” prospective candidates are offered an intense two-year training program that will end with them in the right seat of an Air France […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause on the NTSB’s website at www.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after the […]

The FAA has released its initial design guidelines for vertiports aimed at supporting advanced air mobility (AAM) aircraft with vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities. The design standards are intended to “serve as the initial step to provide key information for airport owners, operators and infrastructure developers to begin development of facilities that will support […]

Utility. It’s all about utility.  That’s why we buy any airplane when we don’t do it purely for fun. We want to go places, we want to go fast and we want to go when we want to go.  We buy speed. We work our whatsits off to get an instrument rating and pay tens […]