AVweb Insider

I’m rarely stumped for things to write about in aviation although I‘m occasionally perched on the fence pondering what I might offer as amusement worthy of getting you through at least half a cup of coffee. Occasionally, readers nudge me as Scott Kordes did this week. “I’d like to read an article and get your […]

As the only U.S. citizen in Iowa who’s over 35 and not running for president, I have the freedom and civic responsibility to bring up delicate topics and speak, perhaps too frankly, about their effects on all our lives. One aviation topic was not even alluded to in this year’s hit summer replacement TV series, […]

Robert Crandall, the long-time CEO of American Airlines, once said the industry is always in the grip of its dumbest competitor. A corollary for GA—if there is one—is that the perception of safety is always set by the latest horrific accident. And it occurred in Hawaii last Friday when a King Air carrying 10 skydivers […]

When the last human pilot exits the cockpit and the cockpit no longer even has a door for a human, we’ll still be arguing about the benefits of aircraft automation. For the time being, this much is true: There is general agreement that widespread automation is eroding pilot physical skills, if not judgment acuity along […]

It’s interesting to watch the thrust and parry that goes on at events like the Paris Air Show because there is no industry I can think of that is more detached from its customers. I would wager that about 90% of the millions of people who board airliners every day have never been to an […]

Wait. What? These things aren’t flying cars. They just aren’t. Or are they? This is the little argument I had with myself yesterday while covering the Uber Elevate Summit in Washington, D.C., via remote streaming. During his introduction, Nikhil Goel, Uber’s head of product for Elevate, referred to these new air taxis as flying cars. […]

The rise of the regional jet has displaced twin turboprops in the short-haul airline market and that, in turn, has relegated a certain term to the dustbin of dead words: puddle jumper. Remember it? Nervous passengers applied it to the unfairly maligned Beech 99 or Embraer Bandeirante poised on the ramp to whisk—OK, plod—them from […]

Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force. You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade toward which we have striven for these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 2, 1944 That Normandy as a hallowed place and D-Day as a seminal event live […]

It’s unpronounceable so don’t even try. Palimpsest means something reused or altered but still bears traces of an earlier form.  Commonly applied to ancient manuscripts when Roman publishers were too stingy to buy new parchment and forced authors to write over Cicero’s remainders. Et mortuus est, et nos non petendam (he’s dead and won’t sue […]

If concrete could emote, several dozen acres of it in Sebring, Florida, must be sighing in relief. Now that the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo has passed into history, there’s no further need to perforate that historical ramp with expansion bolts for temporary tiedowns. Given the sparse attendance at this show, you could argue that its […]