AVweb Insider

For reasons that should be obvious, the FAA is struggling with deciding which towers will be shutdown as a result of the federal budget sequestration. On its face, it should be simple enough: Just sort the towers by movements and lop off just enough to meet the required budget cuts. Done deal.But as usual, politics […]

In another career, I once visited the big fusion research center at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where they were struggling mightily to get more energy out of fusion reactions than they were putting in. I should have thought to mention to them they were looking in the wrong place. All they really needed was a pair […]

Last week’s reader survey on AOPA and outgoing president Craig Fuller drew a surprising number of written comments-easily several thousand. As I pored over them last weekend, I had to wonder what the AOPA board will think of all this. We would like to ask them, but the association declined our request for an interview […]

I’ve been watching the debate over TSA’s recent decision to allow knives with short blades-that’s 2.36 inches or shorter-to pass through its security screening stations. You’d think that such a simple relaxation in the overbearing process of simply getting on an airliner would be universally applauded.But no. The flight attendants are in an uproar. The […]

As the Dow soared to new and unseen heights this week, the financial press is cautiously wondering if the market spike signals a major new long-term bull market. Me, I’m clutching my pearls and dabbing the sweat on my upper lip with my hanky. Pantywaist that I am, September 2008 seems like just last week. […]

Last week’s announcement that AOPA President Craig Fuller will be stepping down came as both a surprise and a coincidence for me. It was a surprise because we had no inkling it was coming; I don’t recall Fuller having made just a five-year commitment. It was a coincidence because I’d been thinking that my current […]

Those of us who fly or who are deeply involved in aviation probably don’t think of airplanes as being dangerous of themselves. And they really aren’t. But an incident over the weekend reveals a constant truth: Get careless around aircraft and they can bite badly, if not fatally.Over the weekend, we had our annual airport […]

On Friday, a mere four days hence, the dreaded federal budget sequestration will begin. So what’s going to happen? Probably not much just after March 1. The real action won’t start until Congress has to get off its collective incompetent hind quarters and debate the Continuing Resolution to fund the government in general. In the […]

One of the hardest things to learn in aviation is that sometimes, it’s just better not to fly and for the most banal of reasons. This is why I’m skeptical that the GA accident rate will ever improve much, if at all. Most of us have had accident-free flying careers through a combination of skill, […]

Predictably, when American Airlines and US Airways announced merger plans, US Airways CEO Doug Parker issued a bland statement straight out of the MBA-speak playbook: “The combined airline will have the scale, breadth and capabilities to compete more effectively and profitably in the global marketplace. Our combined network will provide a significantly more attractive offering […]