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Rapid transportation-that is, anything faster than a galloping horse-hasn’t been with us all that long. Steam locomotives weren’t in widespread use until well into the 19th century, cars came along 70 years later and the airplane a full century after the locomotive. But the timeline for speed evolution in airplanes was almost too rapid to […]

Since this seems to be the season for discussing hypoxia and the threat it presents to GA pilots, I was reminded that we published this dramatic audio on AVweb five years ago. I had forgotten about it, which isn’t a good thing given what an incredible lesson it is. The incident occurred in July 2008 […]

When I was at the Pipistrel factory in Slovenia last April, the techs were patiently amused while I wrapped a wing-mounted GoPro camera with a safety layer of duct tape. I’d stuck the thing under the wing with the standard GoPro 3M pressure sensitive base. “You know,” one of them said, “we never do that. […]

Its never good when a general aviation accident leads the evening news, but that was the case Friday when a TBM 900 became a ghost flight off the South Carolina coast and continued south before crashing in the water off Jamaica early in the afternoon. As we reported, the TBM departed Rochester, New York on […]

Logbooks as a means of preserving precious memories of flight are way overrated because most of us just jot down the basics, rarely making note of how scared, excited or inspired we were by a particular flight or lesson. So even if I could find my first logbook, it would be of no use in […]

Airline travel and everything associated with it has a way of bringing out the worst in people. And now that the airlines have reduced seat pitch to that of a Roman slave galley, we’ve entered the era of the cabin brawl. In case you didn’t hear about it, a United flight from Newark to Denver […]

Here’s the way private GA flying is supposed to work… if you’re flying to Nantucket for lunch with your friends, and they want to pitch in for gas, that’s OK with the FAA. But does that mean it’s OK to walk into a public place full of strangers, say “Hey, does anyone want to go […]

Sooner or later, I knew it was coming: Connie Edwards’ aircraft collection wasn’t going to molder away in his hangar forever and this week, the day arrived. Over the weekend, the U.K.’s Sunday Express announced that Edwards’ collection of about a dozen World War II era fighters had been sold for $17 million to a […]

To travel across the country buying gasoline is to be alternately amused, infuriated and perplexed. And I’m not talking about the price, nor am I referring to avgas. Mogas is on my mind for today’s consideration. To get to AirVenture this year, Val and I did the trip by motorcycle, a big grand swing along […]

If I were to break down the quest for an unleaded avgas into seasons, I think we’re in the long, hot summer phase. From here until two years from now, progress may be like watching the grass grow. At AirVenture last month, the only meaningful activity was that Shell showed up to talk about its […]