AVweb Insider

In casual conversation, some people tell me that they think the best part of an aviation journalists job is getting to fly lots of different kinds of airplanes. Maybe. On the other hand, it should be no surprise that most new airplanes these days fly about the same, given that most were certified years ago […]

In a previous blog, I commented on USA Todays attempt at an expose on the supposedly awful safety record of general aviation. I think most of us will concede that despite the reports flawed perspective and flat out factual errors, it raised some legitimate issues. But lacking any aviation sense, it failed to suggest solutions. […]

While reading over USA Todays exhaustive-and exhausting-indictment of general aviation, I was struck by the inescapable feeling that Id been given the Disney tour of every plaintiffs file room for the past 40 years, without benefit of hearing what cross examination revealed in the court cases this reporting obviously leaned so heavily upon. So much […]

Pilots who live in Florida, and especially on the west coast of Florida, have this problem. Its called the Gulf of Mexico. Nice beaches and all, and warm for nine months a year, but if youre going anywhere west of about 85 degrees longitude, youll have the argument with yourself about cutting the corner across […]

I was scrolling down my newsreader app this morning and saw a story about George H.W. Bush jumping out of a helicopter. Odd, I thought, thats an old story, why are they running it again. Not. For his 90th birthday, the senior Bush did another tandem-his seventh-to celebrate. The story also noted that the former […]

As a journalist, Ive come to recognize a certain look when I ask a victim…err, I mean, a source, a question I know is going to be sensitive. If the question is getting close to pay dirt, the person suffering the interview adopts a certain Cheshire cat look that implies to me: if only I […]

Late last week, I visited the Rotax factory in Austria, where Ive been once before and Ive interviewed the company executives and technical people more times than that. These discussions drift around various themes, but two recur noticeably. First, Rotax and its parent, BRP Powertrain, is, above all else, an engine company. But the conversations […]

If you were asked to describe the great technological challenge of the age, what would it be? Cracking fusion as an energy source? The 1000 wh/kg lithium-ion battery? Cheap turbine engines made of plastic? For me, it would be a flashlight that does what its supposed to for, say, at least a year after purchase. […]

One of the occupational hazards of being a video editor is becoming an inevitable victim of the genius of YouTube code writers. They have absolutely figured out the art of click bait and if youre able to resist falling into the black hole of wasting hours watching pointless videos one day, you wont the next. […]

I dont know whether to be shocked, surprised or skeptical of this weeks reports that Customs and Border Protection is re-examining its policies toward stop-and-search of private aircraft. For now, I think Ill go with skeptical. The reasons are several, chief among them being that CBP is a giant, complex and largely opaque bureaucracy of […]