AVweb Insider

When it comes to the buying of gasoline, I may be the quintessential American in one sense and the atypical American in another. Regardless of what it costs, I’m going to buy it and do what I plan to do. I’m the last guy to care if one station has a price a nickel less […]

As 2015 draws to a close, it’s time to take a few reflective moments to consider the year just past, to wonder at the marvel of flight, to appreciate its sheer poetry and to give thanks for that rarified privilege we all reverently share. And also to attempt to make feeble but pointless amends for […]

This week’s successful landing and recovery of a launch booster by SpaceX got a lot favorable coverage and was an impressive feat. But as a classically trained aeronautical engineer who spent more than three decades flying crewed rocket ships into space, I have always looked at the concept of a fly-back booster with skepticism. The […]

So Amazon is starting an airline and it’s because of me. Or people like me, evidently. As you read in this week’s news columns, Amazon hasn’t confirmed it yet, but sources say they’re trying to make a deal to lease a fleet of 20 or more 767s to fly their own packages around the country. […]

It’s always amusing when the hardworking daily press gets wind of an aviation-related story that’s trending out there where the busses don’t run. Such was the case Thursday when several outlets picked up the announcement from Terrafugia that its flying car had been approved for test flights in the U.S. “The FAA Just Approved Test […]

Despite our cynical belief that it would never get it done before Christmas, the FAA announced on Monday that its new drone registration program for all but the smallest drones will be in place next week. After we’ve registered, we’ll let you know how it works. But in the meantime, we’ve given the FAA a […]

A couple of blogs ago, we examined avionics for old guys, but what about avionics for old airplanes? As the fleet ages along with the pilots who own it, a not-that-old airplane these days is one built in the early 1980s. As an inveterate observer of panels, I always peer inside the windows of airplanes […]

Like spilled red wine soaking into a white tablecloth, the meme that we live in an age of fear seems to be an indelible idea. I would like to state two things for the record, however. One, I think that whatever fear exists is mostly a product of hysterical cable news coverage. And second, speaking […]

To think that regulation does anything but stifle creativity and strangle commerce is about as close to apostasy as you’re likely to get in aviation. And even if it weren’t, would you admit it in mixed company? That’s a rhetorical question. Don’t overthink it. But one man’s onerous, suffocating rule is another’s golden opportunity to […]

Ho-hum, another month, another accident in which the aviation industry can get its pants snagged on the notion that cockpit automation is turning us all into numbskull idiots with hands of stone. But what if the pilot is already well on his way to being a numbskull? Does the automation push him over the edge […]