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“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 […]

From the Are-You-As-Fed-Up-By-This-Pandemic As-I-Am file, this video came pixeling across my Facebook feed last week. It was produced by the Allied Pilots Association, the pilot union of American Airlines. If whatever segment of the economy you’re working in is back to normal, the airline and travel industry definitely is not. The video takes a none-too-veiled […]

On cryptocurrency exchanges one picture buys a thousand words, but magazines pay cash for words, so here’s a thousand about one photo I took in 1976 at Watsonville, California Muni (WVI). I was in college and attending my first fly-in. Despite tramping around airports since I was a kid, I was unaware that pilots routinely […]

If you ask anyone who has done it what the overwhelming challenge of developing a new airplane is, it won’t have to do with weight, a suitable powerplant or lift and drag, but where the money is coming from to pay for it. That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw Toyota’s proposed […]

After abandoning the Santa Clara Valley for a new life on a small airport in rural Iowa, you’ll notice that your California flying buddies at Reid Hillview Airport (RHV) never visit, partly because they know if they leave their hangars unoccupied the county will raze them in its campaign to eliminate General Aviation. Additionally, everyone […]

In the aviation press, we’re occasionally enthralled by various fads and gadgets often propelled by what readers tell us they’re interested in. Sometimes these emerge from developmental trends in the industry, sometimes the flow goes the other way. That’s certainly the case with carbon monoxide detectors. I’ve done at least three rounds of trials with […]

As was anyone who ever had the honor to meet him, I was saddened to learn of the passing of General Charles McGee last week at age 102. Like many journalists, I had the chance to talk at length with McGee about his experiences as a Tuskegee Airman, and the rest of his distinguished 30-year […]