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GPS On The Move… Under a new modification to the FAA’s Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) project, approach and landing guidance availability will increase to more than 99 percent across much of the North American continent, Raytheon Co. said on Monday. The plan to deploy “Full Lateral Precision with Vertical Guidance (LPV) Performance” will enhance […]

Still, aviation groups, most notably AOPA, continue to criticize the rule, even though the TSA has delayed or softened some of the more controversial requirements. For instance, rather than keeping a photocopy of a student’s proof of citizenship on file, an instructor can now simply endorse his or her own logbook and that of the […]

Meanwhile, a Las Vegas flight school owner says concerns about the new rule are overblown and not worth the time and energy they’re absorbing. Jane Pinto, of First Flight Aviation, told AVweb she believes that anyone engaged in training future pilots who can’t meet the minimal identification and record-keeping requirements under the new law shouldn’t […]

Credentials Slow In Coming, Says Sporty’s… If one of the most recognizable flight-training institutions in the U.S. has trouble complying with the new alien training rule, what must that mean for the thousands of independent instructors and small flight schools across the country? So wonders Eric Radtke, CEO of Sporty’s Academy Inc. and the recipient […]

What if that VFR pilot does end up descending into the clouds? An oft-cited 1954 study found that non-instrument-rated pilots then had a hard time controlling the airplane when faced with a loss of visual cues. In experiments conducted in real Beechcraft Bonanzas, 19 out of 20 pilots entered a graveyard spiral within three minutes […]

When AVweb‘s Question Of The Week on Sept. 1 polled readers about flying VFR above a cloud layer, we heard from almost 1,400 of you, well above our average response, and received written comments from more. The QOTW described a flight in which a pilot took off VFR and landed VFR but flew en route […]

A Story Not For The Squeamish… When AVweb reader Steve Biddle asked an innocent question about flying VFR above a cloud layer, he initiated a long and tangled quest through the annals of the FAA, the confusion of the GA masses, and the arcana of the U.S. airspace system. Today, almost two months after Biddle’s […]

As Tom Poberezny said, “This event was not targeted to be a ‘mass’ event — it’s an expo.” The feeling many attendees got was of being invited into the inside of the industry, sort of like attending an industry convention, where the public is invited. Think of it maybe as small aircraft’s NBAA Convention, with […]

The open feeling of the show lent a relaxed feeling, as the people attendees really wanted to see were available. No one had an excuse for going home with unanswered questions. No one had to go home without a good look at, or even a ride in, representative aircraft. Walking from one end of the […]

Sebring ’04: The First LSA Expo… Unlike a lot of “first-year” events, the just-concluded Sebring (Fla.) U.S. Sport Aviation Expo was well-focused, well-organized and well-run. That it wasn’t well-attended is our loss. Not that it was empty, either: All the exhibitor spaces were pre-sold, and a number of industry heavies (Randy Schlitter, Tom Peghiny, John […]