Ownership

Recently a Beech/Raytheon Baron 58TC crashed in New Jersey, killing four. Although it will be a long time before investigators release their findings on the final causes of the tragedy, early reports said a friend of the Baron’s owner was flying the airplane. Regardless of the cause of the accident, this brings to mind a […]

Journalism school educators, real-world experienced though they were, couldn’t hold a candle to the mercilessness of a crusty, curmudgeonly desk editor dryly intoning: “Where’s the story? I’m through the second graph and don’t know why I should read this.” So here it is: Bill Sandman and his gang at M-20 Turbos LLC have a winner […]

Did ya’ hear about the school board for a midwestern state that approached theend of the 1990s by “de-emphasizing” evolution in science classes? Thereally wanted to roll time back to before George of the Jungle came to Kansas —but not so far back that they couldn’t keep the Tin Woodsman, the Scarecrow,Dorothy — and her […]

The key to understanding aviation insurancecosts is the term “loss ratio (LR).” The LR is the ratio of money paid out inclaims, compared to the money taken in through insurance premiums. The loss ratio ingeneral aviation insurance has exceeded 1.1 to as much as 1.25 or more for the lastseveral years. This means that most […]

This was a trip I had been anticipating eagerly allyear. I’d been invited to give a seminar at the CaymanIslands’ International Aviation Week gathering, and would be flying myT310R from its west coast base to Key West Florida, then joining up with The Cayman Caravan to fly over the top of Cubaand into Grand Cayman. […]

Somany pilots forget, or never knew, that the earliest heavier-than-air birdspretty much all flew beak-first. But check out any photo of the Wrights’earliest machines and some built by their followers … the canard. Strange thatthe canard never really became an industry standard, long ago overshadowed by”backward-built” airplanes, those with the tail surface in back, inone […]

Myadventure started when my soon-to-be-husband and I began searching for a WilgaPZL-80. We figured finding one of the ungainly-looking Polish birds in thecondition we wanted and a price we thought fair would be a relatively easything. Six months later, after a thorough search of the U.S., Canada, and muchof Eastern Europe, we had revised our […]

Myfirst Aerostar, a 1974 600A, came equipped with a Wulfsberg Flightphone I. Thiswas a manually-operated early model — “New York operator, this is QM-2602I’d like to call 215-555-5575 please…” — and was only half-duplex. Thatmeant only one person could speak at a time; “I’ll be home at 6:30 …over,” I’d say to hear my wife […]

BoDiddley made famous a line that struck me with its truth from my first exposure,a refrain that stayed with me from my teen years on: Most often, people reminded me of Bo Diddley’s refrain, folks whosepersonalities defied the overrated “first impression” deemedall-important by so many advising adults. As the years progressed, machinesoccasionally connected that same […]

Metalfatigue isn’t a subject that usually keeps me awake at night. For most of the 30-odd yearsduring which I’ve been an aircraft owner, I figured it was a subject of interest mainly tometallurgists and aeronautical engineers and other Ph.D. types, not to mere mortalaircraft owners like me. Figure 1 — Under dye penetrant, the fatigue […]