Blog Posts

Most Americans today have but two connections with those who serve and have served in the military, and especially those who have perished in that service. The first is the hollow seconds it takes to utter “Thank you for your service,” a…

Can Airports Help Revive the Aviation Industry?Dear Reader / Listeners — You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or just read the script of the show below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here to listen a…

Publisher’s Note: Every once in awhile we receive a story that’s well enough written on a timely topic that we know we want to publish it after just the first read. Meet Kyle and Linda Reynolds from Flight Level Group. Kyle is a busines…

As aviators, the sky is where we’d rather be. While many factors conspire against the fulfillment of this desire, being attuned to and looking up at the inhabitants in the ocean of air above us sustains our connection to it, which is why sprin…

In less than a month in late 1911, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and the United States each made their inaugural air mail flights. All of them were short distance experiments that led to regular delivery schedules along established routes. The…

Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or just read the script of the show below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here to listen as well.If you’re not yet a subscribe…

From time unrecorded, humans have looked up and envied the birds above them. In time we created machines to emulate their various forms of flight. But have you ever given a moments thought to pilot reincarnation and what kind of bird you would be?…

I’m glad I never worked in corporate communications for United Airlines, especially since the Continental merger. The calls from outraged customers and curious media types probably never end and it seems to me that United management really doe…

The older I get the more susceptible to hypothermia I seem to be, which is a roundabout way of saying that I’ve not been out much because many of these Wisconsin winter days have begun below zero. To combat cabin fever, I’ve been catalog…

At United Airlines, does making money trump safety?A recent Aviation Week article quotes United CEO Jeff Smisek saying, “We’re going to run the airline for profit maximization …” That made me wonder a bit.Then I noticed la…

How Passengers Helped Mess Up Frequent Flyer ProgramsDear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or just read the script of the show below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here …

Over the past quarter century I’ve read most of the Notices of Proposed Rulemaking that would affect general aviation. What separates the just released NPRM that introduces Part 107, Operation and Certification of Small Unmanned Aircraft Syste…

Why is Regional Airline Pay So Bad?Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or just read the text of the show below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here to listen as well.I…

Late last year, NASA launched it Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) program to devise and test an automated system that would keep drones from bumping into each other as they performed a variety of missions. What concerns me is th…

 Simply put, first-person view (FPV) is a smart phone perspective of flight. It gives the person in command of a remotely piloted aircraft a real-time look at where it is going. And it is the future of flying because it provides what people wa…

Given the recent reports of job growth and the enduring discussions about pilot shortages, I moseyed over to the Bureau of Labor Statistics to see which occupations are ascending and which are in decline and where airline pilots show up on that spec…

Sporty’s debut of its Cessna 172LITE Project has rightfully attracted the attention of a cannonball launched from the high dive at the deep end of the aviation pool. While most are paying attention to the splash made by the airplane’s re…

FAA rules alone won’t prevent a drone-jet collisionBy Robert P. Mark, reprinted from The Chicago Tribune, December 25, 2014(Photo -Terrence Antonio James, Chicago Tribune)This holiday season, one of the hottest-selling toys has been the qua…

Directed my way by a leader familiar with my connection to aviation, an Eagle Scout e-mailed me this question: “I want to become an airline pilot when I get older and I’d like to know where to start? What things can I do as a high schoo…

Drones in the NewsWhen I was a kid my mom told me she could always tell when I was hiding something … “It shows all over your face,” she’d say.No one, not even me, believes drones this size are a threat. So what does this…

Bird strikes are perhaps the greatest unappreciated risk pilots face. There are a number of reasons for this, but among the primary contenders is the fact that most strikes result in expensive airframe and powerplant repairs rather than catastrophic…

Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or read the text below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here to listen as well.At the risk of droning on about a topic my pals David…

This past week the mailman delivered a reason to think about my unknown but rapidly approaching expiration date. Thanking me for my four decade membership tenure, EAA offered me a three-figure rebate if I bought a four-figure lifetime membership.T…

Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to the Aviation Minute podcast or read the text below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here to listen as well.Time to Give ATC an “Atta Boy”Most aviat…