AVweb Insider

Should FAA test questions be published for the public, so students and instructors know what to expect? That’s how it used to be, back when many of us learned to fly, but now a proposal to return to that system from today’s lockbox method is under debate. To publish the questions would encourage students to […]

With AirVenture just weeks away, it’s worth reading over our report on NASCAR owner Jack Roush’s 2010 landing accident at Oshkosh. I discussed this topic in a previous blog, but I think it probably bears repeating before every AirVenture. Roush crashed his Premier jet while aborting a landing try, but stalled the airplane and impacted […]

So now what happens with Hawker Beechcraft? This week, we published the company’s three plans for digging itself out of bankruptcy and surviving in one piece. But judging by what I’ve heard from a few people in the industry, it’s going to be a tough slog to pull this off. The company is just not […]

I’ve always thought that flight instruction divides itself into three broad camps: Soviet style, ad hoc and something in between. Soviet style implies rigid adherence to the syllabus and checklist and no improvisation. At its most radical, ad hoc instruction-or flying for that matter-devolves to reducing flying to the level of driving a car, which […]

I was sitting in the exit row of an AirTran 717 last week when I had one of those coincidences of threes that seem to occasionally lift life from the mundane. The flight attendant had just cleared the row of a mother and her daughter, the daughter being too young to legally occupy the seat. […]

I was channel surfing last week and landed on a video clip of Elon Musk blubbering about how no less than certified American icons Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan were bad mouthing Musk’s commercial space initiative. He was close to tears. Actually, in testimony before Congress, Armstrong and Cernan weren’t so much exclusively dissing SpaceX, […]

Today is June 6, a date whose significance in history should need no explanation to anyone who’s moderately informed about World War II. For a number of years now, as the date approaches, I take the time to re-read Cornelius Ryan’s superbly crafted The Longest Day. Now that I’ve got it on my Kindle, I […]

This weekend’s story about a trio of guys motoring around the Midwest in a Cessna 182 chasing tornadoes reminded me of what I don’t see much of anymore: accidents involving penetration of thunderstorms. Twenty years ago, we used to see a couple of dozen of these every year. Now, I’d guess it’s less than half […]

Shortly after we reported on the FAA’s unleaded fuel transition group’s progress last week, I got a couple of e-mails asking exactly what it all means, including one inquiring about what to do about overhauls.That last question is easy. If you need an overhaul, buy an overhaul. Nothing the UAT-ARC has done so far or […]

Since about 1973, the year of the first oil embargo, muddle-headed politicians from both parties have used the absurd idea of “energy independence” as a campaign talking point that rube voters will swill like free beer. But in the ugly trench warfare of daily politics, their actual votes sometimes undermine this supposed apple-pie-and-motherhood, all-purpose good […]