AVweb Insider

Now this one hardly adds up at all. Pixeling across the screen this afternoon comes a press release from AOPA noting that general aviation pilots are happy to help with congestion in the New York area. The comment was made by AOPA Prez Craig Fuller at a meeting in Queens to discuss changes to reduce […]

In the free enterprise system which we all enjoy in the U.S., it’s almost an article of faith that profit-driven companies that answer to the bottom line and market forces can deliver goods and services more efficiently than government can. Sometimes that’s true, sometimes it isn’t. A recent example of the latter is the slow […]

If I’m catching USA Today writer Thomas Frank’s drift, he thinks that aviation activity beyond the “139 well-known commercial airports that handle almost all passenger flights” isn’t worth the bother of the federal government.It would be interesting, but dangerous and impractical to test his thesis. There are about 5,000 airports in the U.S that are […]

In an age of instant everything-and especially a 24/7/365 news cycle-the world of aviation continues to be remarkably vulnerable to the slightest panic. Unaccounted for valise in B concourse? Shut the airport down. Bomb threat half a world away? Strip search passengers.On Friday, the eighth anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks, we got yet […]

There are times in aviation when we should celebrate the stunning skill of our brethren pilots-Sully-on-Hudson is a good example. In other cases, we are correct to draw attention to instances involving bad judgment and or lack of skill and sometimes, we oughta just sweep everything under the rug. The Victor bomber “accidental takeoff” appearing […]

Surveying the wreckage that is what’s left of the very light jet market-remember them?-one thing is obvious. If this market exists at all-and I’m not convinced it does-no one has come even close to either proving it or getting the delicate relationship between investment, sale price of the airplane and potential volume just right. Although […]

Continuing its let’s-really-jump-the-gun-on-this-one response to the Hudson River midair collision on August 8th, the board last week issued a set of recommendations to the FAA. This was done well before any conclusions about the cause of the accident have been reached, making me wonder if the board has become more politically charged than it used […]

Earlier this week, Russ Niles sent me a news clipping describing a house fire in which an overheated laptop computer was implicated as the cause. This came just as ALPA, the airline union, was calling for regulations banning air transport of the high-energy lithium-ion batteries that power everything from laptops to portable DVD players. These […]

Recently, some folks in Virginia who have been working for years to preserve the legacy of the Wright Brothers and educate new generations about their achievements have taken up the task of fighting to save the Langley Full-Scale Wind Tunnel from the wrecking ball. Ken Hyde and his team at The Wright Experience made use […]

I spent the latter part of last week at Diamond Aircraft’s London, Ontario factory which is, by my estimation, what Hollywood would come up with for an airplane plant. High ceilings with skylights, open bays with airplanes moving down the line and lots of bustle.The Diamond factory actually dates to the 1940s, when it made […]