AVweb Insider

There are certain questions that you just naturally don’t want to hear. For example, “Is this the last beer?” or “Do you know how fast you were going?” or a variation on that, “Didn’t you hear me tell you not to cross that runway?” I’ve heard the second question in that list more times than […]

There’s a weird disconnect in aviation that is taken for granted but kind of hard to explain in the context of the current state of affairs.  It would be a fairly safe assumption, I think, that most pilots think of themselves as being decisive, independent sorts who can think on their feet. Anyone without those […]

I went skydiving last weekend for the first time in a little over three months. More on that further down the page. First, some comments on how people are handling—or not handling—the risk of flying in the age of COVID-19. I wish I could say I’ve seen and can point to someone, some group, some […]

It’s embarrassing. I’ve been a pilot for over 45 years, learned to fly at a military airport with a control tower, and mumbled through an ATC career that ended in don’t-let-the-TRACON-door-hit-you-in-the-butt-on-the-way-out. Despite that resume, I still fumble when using my own voice, a seemingly innocuous instrument comprised of hot air and virus droplets. As with […]

One word comes to mind to describe SpaceX’s flawless Saturday launch and subsequent docking of the Crew Dragon with the International Space Station: Impressive. I’d add another kicker to that: Desperately needed. In a year that’s not even half over and that has proven uniformly awful so far, an undiluted success lifts the spirits, salves […]

With the excitement building in the aerospace world for the first commercial crew launch (from any country) by SpaceX from the Florida coast, everyone was looking for smoke and fire and a needle-thin rocket rising from the launch pad and into the sky on Wednesday. But that was not to be, as late spring brought […]

I occasionally delight and shock my non-aviation friends with short, expletive-laden descriptions of airplane engines having changed little since VE day. In some ways, they’ve gotten a little worse. “Wait, you mean they have pushrods and carburetors? How can that be true?” It is true, of course, unless you fly one of the new-tech diesels […]

Last week, I was asked what I thought of the idea of a small airshow event going forward at the end of the July, about in the same time frame when AirVenture would have occurred. It’s to be a small outdoor-only event. The organizer asked me if I thought it would draw? Was it a […]

As a writer, I receive a slug of calls, often telling me I’m full of beans. I usually agree and ask how the caller got my number. Most calls are friendly, and 30-ish years ago I received one from Rudy Frasca, the very real simulator guy. I didn’t know Rudy, but he’d just read my […]

Are you familiar with the term gaslighting? It’s from the cultural vernacular and it means that some tormenter or malign force is causing you to doubt your own sanity. In my case, the bad actor seems to be reality itself, in this case some recent press coverage suggesting that we really have to have a […]