AVweb Insider

Only the U.S. government could, in response to a labor situation in which the job is so boring and low-key that workers can’t stay awake to do it, double the workforce. That’s essentially where we are now with the sleeping controller fiasco, as the FAA announced adding a second controller to what had been solo […]

Investigators looking into the A380 and CRJ collision at JFK International got a lucky break: Someone was evidently videoing where the collision occurred using a cellphone camera. The rest of us got something astonishing to look at. What surprised me is how the force of the collision spun the CRJ nearly 90 degrees on its […]

When I took my ATP checkride some years ago, the examiner, who knew me, posed a question: Could I prove that I met the requirements of FAR 61.153 (c)? In case you’re a little rusty on the FARs, that clause requires ATP candidates to be of “good moral character.” Hah,hah…very funny. But I do wonder […]

When I was listening to the ATC recordings of United Flight 497’s emergency in New Orleans – you can hear them here – I was overwhelmed by one fact: Even in a sophisticated, multi-million dollar FAR 25 transport category tested to a fare-thee-well, things can go to hell in a hurry. What starts out as […]

This year, going into Sun ‘n Fun, I thought about making a blood pact with Russ Niles and Mary Grady to just shoot anyone who proposed any kind of a story related to “recovery” in 2011. Or 2012. No one can answer this, so I just vowed to stop asking the unanswerable and resigned myself […]

Despite a diligent search, I am unable to find a video record of the look on Randy Babbitt’s face when he learned that one of his controllers thought it a good idea to request a little impromptu formation flying between a Southwest 737 and Cirrus gone quiet near Jacksonville this week. But I imagine he […]

I hate getting my feet wet but as my mud-caked sneakers dry by the door of my warm, dry hotel room and my spiffy green AVweb shirt dries on a hanger, my pruny toes are of little consequence. Out at Lakeland Linder Airport, the cleanup is already well under way as vendors, show volunteers and […]

Asleep on the Job In my spare time, I’m working on becoming a connoisseur of interpreting Randy Babbitt’s facial expressions. And watching an ABC report last week, I’m pretty sure the glazed-eyed look I saw on Mr. Babbitt’s mug essentially said, “I can’t believe my job requires me to sit here and answer such stupid […]

Yup, I couldn’t throw off that line from 2001: A Space Odyssey when one of Garmin’s engineers was demonstrating the voice recognition function in the new GMA35/GTN series we’re covering today by remote control from Reno. I could imagine myself getting into an argument with my semi-intelligent audio panel: “Listen, you pile of transitorized crap, […]

There was a time in my life as a journalist that the shallow platitudes that the political class spouts almost as an autonomic function went in one ear, through the emptiness in between, and out the other. Now, they tend to bounce around, get hung up and just piss me off.Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s comments […]