One thing you never want to do is give me a book to review. I read them quickly, but often take forever to getting around to telling people what I thought of the experience, which pretty much defeats the purpose of the review … at least from the stance of the author. And I ought [...]

The politician is an amazing form of life, a shining example that the only reliable human constant is inconsistency–especially when it comes to aviation, specifically smaller airplanes and their airports. Some, like those from Nebraska, get it, and others, like those in Ohio, do not (or they’ve never taken the time to learn). In Ohio’s [...]

Having just traveled to Paris on an Air France A330 a week before the crash of Flight 447, I took a rather personal interest in the crisis wondering whether it might have been the same aircraft I’d flown on the week before for starters and a host of other things. But the crash was obviously [...]

Catching up on my reading, the annual report of the Sporty’s Foundation had worked its way to the top of the pile. As I was flipping through the pages I was not really thinking about the good works presented in words and pictures. I was thinking about Jay Leno’s last night as host of the [...]

One of Jetwhine’s earliest supporters – Matt Thurber – sent us this piece, one that I’m happy to publish. Matt is an old friend and a senior editor at Aviation International News, where I’m also a long-time contributor. This piece would be disturbing in any environment, but in one where the new Administrator Randy Babbitt [...]

On June 4 the Des Moines Register published an article whose headline said “Tiny Iowa Airports Take Off With Millions in FAA Grants.” To be honest, it’s what you’d expect from a newspaper and reporter whose aviation experience doesn’t extend much past his last airline flight. The gist of this “analysis” is this: “Airports across [...]

I had the good fortune recently to be invited to ferry a Dassault Falcon 2000LX back to the U.S. – Teterboro in fact – from the factory in Bordeaux France. It was my first Atlantic crossing and certainly gave me new respect for the work it takes to make sure the aircraft really is where [...]

For as long as I can remember, Southwest Airlines, now the largest U.S. domestic airline, created in the 1970s by Herb Kelleher and Rollin King, has been the low-cost airline others most want to emulate. The need to copy isn’t just about money, although Southwest has a profit history better than any other airline in [...]

No one in aviation has escaped the recession, but it seems that some companies are better set up to deal with it because they pursue an old fashioned business model: listen to your customers, do everything in your power to meet their needs, and grow the business only when it makes sense, not to meet [...]

I was privileged to have been invited to fly the Airbus A380 in Toulouse last week. I think it took about 4 seconds for me to decide when I was asked if I wanted the job of flying, evaluating and then writing up my findings on a few new pieces of on-board electronics to this [...]