AVweb Insider

For decades, general aviation has been operating and designed around a single fuel – 100LL. Now environmental and economic pressures are driving the search for an unleaded alternative. Lycoming firmly believes that an equivalent performance unleaded aviation grade replacement for 100LL is the best total solution for our industry overall. We also know that using […]

Oshkosh is such a huge event and we are so busy with daily deadlines that even spending a week there every year, it’s impossible to experience all of it. I always wish I had more time to spend around the “edges” of the show, out in the fringes where you might stumble over something interesting […]

It’s all but an article of faith that when things go awry in the political structure-which is, what?…basically always-aviation takes it in the shorts. It’s depressingly illuminating to find out why, sometimes. This week, it’s a hopeless fight over Essential Air Service or EAS, holding up the FAA’s reauthorization. Or at least that’s part of […]

Even as Boeing parked its cutting-edge Dreamliner in ConocoPhillips Plaza last week, it is fashionable to decry the lack of innovation in aviation. Same old engines, same old airframes, same old high prices, same tired comparisons to the automotive industry. It’s almost as if innovation itself is the product, not airplanes that are actually useful […]

Babbitt and LaHood ArriveAs Thursday dawns cool and foggy and early departures are pulling their hair out trying to get home, we’re told that SecDot Ray LaHood and FAA administrator Randy Babbitt will arrive sometime today for a press conference. (I somehow suspect this is subject to change.)Even before this event happens, I could probably […]

Lots of CampersI got a bit of a surprise Sunday afternoon when driving by the North 40 camping area at Wittman Field in Oshkosh. The field wasn’t quite full to the fence line off the approach end of runway 9 but it was getting there. That’s as full as I’ve seen the campground on a […]

As EAA Air Venture comes to life today, one of the topics on the agenda later in the week is fuels, specifically a replacement for leaded avgas. At last year’s show, there was a flurry of activity on this subject, with meetings and briefing galore. This year, not so much. It’s not that the topic […]

Like a lot of pilots, I’m a little afraid of heights. I’m fine on ladders and roofs but looking over railings on tall bridges or edging toward a cliff edge sets my inner ear off.Flying or flying in an aircraft doesn’t bother me in the slightest, regardless of the attitude or altitude. Those of us […]

When the Space Shuttle lands-which it did this morning for the last time-it lights up the west coast of Florida with a resounding double sonic-boom. It’s not subtle, either. It rattles the windows to the point that even when you know what it is, you ask…what the hell was that?I missed it this morning. The […]

The crowds at Oshkosh are the best in the world, because they are fans, not spectators — that’s what airshow pilot Mike Goulian told me last week — and that makes all the difference. His remarks struck me because I had just been at an airshow a few weeks before, and had been wondering what […]