AVweb Insider

In this blog and others, we have offered various theories to explain why general aviation can’t attract more participants. These vary in detail, but there’s general agreement that the largest factor is economic: Flying is just too expensive and expressed as a ratio of expense to disposable income, it’s getting worse. Why is this? Stand […]

March 8, 1910 Raymonde de Laroche of France became the first woman in the world to earn a pilot license. That same year, Marthe Niel of France, Marie Marvingt of France and Helene Dutrieux of Belgium also earned theirs.On September 16, 1910, Bessica Medlar Raiche soloed in the airplane she and her husband Francois Raiche […]

The problem with rules and regulations is not that they exist, but that those which require judgment and interpretation-and that’s most of them-confuse people who aren’t, shall we say, self-aware. (In case you haven’t noticed, I wouldn’t necessarily put myself in that group while admitting I have my clueless days.)This came to light for me […]

Every now and again, I have to silently cheer for the FAA’s plodding, frustratingly contorted way of doing its business. This week brings news that the agency isn’t going along with the Air Force’s insistence that it needs yet another restricted area, this one in North Dakota, in which to train drone operators. Here’s the […]

In a season marked by grim economic numbers and tiresome politics, inspiration and encouragement seems a rarity, but it can come when you least expect it. Our Cub was in the hangar last week for its annual and we discovered that when you own an airplane that’s so simple that nothing can break, something sometimes […]

By now, most pilots have heard of the events surrounding John and Martha King’s run-in with the aviation security system. There is no reason to fault the police officers that responded with drawn weapons. They reacted the way they are trained. There is no reason to believe that the police officers, most likely non-aviators, knew […]

As is often the case, this week’s blog on simulator training drew a little trickle of e-mail in the background from readers who don’t feel like engaging in the forum. One was from a long-time contributor railing about the inadequacies of modern training and, especially the alarming attitude of some pilots who rely entirely on […]

There can be no question that aviation is the most important technological advance of the last 100 years. Yeah, computers are cool, too, and there’s the telephone, not to mention the 1967 Charger, but for overall impact on humanity I don’t think there’s an argument.So, it always amazes me how slow we are to adopt […]

Back when I was editing IFR magazine, I got myself invited for a two-day sea tour on the U.S.S. Roosevelt, a Nimitz class carrier then doing workups to return to the Persian Gulf. After the fact, the Navy invited me to fly an F-14 simulator at NAS Oceana, for a follow-up story on how landing […]

Sunday night both Russ Niles and I got one of those e-mails that interrupt the peaceful routine of the weekend news biz: “We were held at gunpoint and handcuffed at an airport and it could happen to any pilot.” The note was from John and Martha King.By now, you will have read the details or […]