AVweb Insider

My various research projects lead me on some interesting trips through photo archives and one that turns up repeatedly is also one of my favorites. It was probably shot in 1947 or 1948 and captured the flight operations team for the Bell X-1, the first aircraft to exceed Mach 1. You’ll immediately recognize Chuck Yeager […]

In this airline pilot hiring boom, we are seeing up-and-coming pilots post in online forums that they have worked hard to train and achieve all the certification and credentials to become airline pilots and are frustrated to discover that their multiple training and checkride failures are preventing them from landing at an airline. To qualify […]

In May of 2016, I covered an obscure trade show put on by the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International—AUVSI—in New Orleans. I spent the effort and money to do that because, at the time, it looked like drones were soon to become a significant part of aviation. While that’s true by degree, unmanned vehicles […]

Aviation’s Owning v. Renting debate is a rite of spring, best enjoyed while listening to Stravinsky on your Sixty-Eight Firebird’s 8-track in the FBO parking lot as you consider whether to buy a Cirrus (sweet) or rent a Cessna (dependable). Tough decision, but perhaps a sprig of fractured Hamlet will clarify the choice: “To be […]

Early in the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine, the perfect cyber-fueled urban myth appeared: The Ghost of Kyiv. By now, you’ve heard the story. A heroic and skilled Ukrainian Mig 29 pilot downed five or six Russian aircraft in a single day, including another Mig 29. I was traveling at the time the story appeared […]

Consider that moment when you’re in the swirling bisque, fingernails clutching the rim as unpleasant consequences mock your lack of exit strategy. Like my first day in the Army when a drill sergeant expressed his unvarnished displeasure with my existence, or the time I accepted a party invitation only to discover, as the deadbolt clicked […]

“At United, we’re convinced that the root of the problem is that it costs over $100,000 and takes five or more years to obtain all the training to become eligible to fly for a major airline,” said Scott Kirby, CEO at United Airlines in a recently published opinion piece titled “The truth about the pilot […]

“Some people’s lives are like a feather in the wind, carried from breeze to breeze, buffeted by events. Others travel a steady path they lay out for themselves, or one that fate or family bequeaths to them. But then there are others for whom their entire life comes down to a single instant that makes […]

The so-called great resignation has, heretofore, mainly applied to rank-and-file workers in the private sector but evidently the wave caught FAA Administrator Steve Dickson this week. He announced he’s out the door on March 1, less than two weeks hence. That’s a month more than half the five-year term he would have been expected to […]

Stories about confrontations with the FAA are legion among just about every sector in aviation but I seem to be detecting an even more combative stance by the agency that everyone loves to hate. The MAX debacle put the agency on the ropes and it seems to be fighting its way back into the ring […]