Blog Posts

More than it has in the previous two years I’ve judged an airport writing contest, fear was a central theme in the nearly three dozen essays submitted by students in elementary, middle, and high school. Most of them addressed airline flights and be…

When the FAA tells you they’re changing the way they conduct business because they want to be more fair to someone, or that they want to save money, it’s probably time to duck. You can pretty much be sure that whatever they have in mind isn’t going …

I can’t believe I’m going to say something nice about the TSA again. That’s twice in a couple of months. I do think it’s worth mentioning that the TSA has actually created a product with value in their new TSA PreCheck card, part of the DHS’s Global…

Since I learned to fly in 1976, the vicissitudes of life have removed me from the cockpit and later returned me to the left seat. As a rusty pilot, I am again at a point where my return to the sky is possible, but deciding whether to take advantage …

Pardon our tardiness delivering this week’s episode, but we wanted to wait for our new logo to show up. Many thanks to @runwaygirl’s sister Anne Kirby and The Sweet Core crew for launching us into the 21st Century. On to the content. This week I’m f…

While it may seem to many of you as if the Malaysian Airlines 370 story has been going on forever, we’re really only into the opening scenes of this investigation. Remember it took two years to recover the data recorders from Air France 447. Lessons…

From the first time we looked up, what has attracted humans to flight is seeing the world from the perspective of a bird. That attraction still drives many of us, but how we achieve this first-person view (FPV) has changed with technology. If you do…

The past month has been one of amazement for most of us in the aviation industry as millions of people around the world try and figure out what happened to Malaysian Airlines flight 370. CNN decided to go 24/7 with MH370 coverage, while I was happy …

It’s time to get our listeners caught up on The Aviation Minute. Seems that working the kinks out of our new podcast turned out to be a bit more time consuming than I’d at first thought. Now that the iTunes folks tell us The Aviation Minute has …

Has the exemplary aviation safety record become its own worst enemy because it instills unrealistic expectations of risk in the minds of those fly? As a consequence, reactions to these infrequent but unpreventable circumstances instantly climbs to a…

James Bond creator Ian Fleming Ian Flemming and Tom Clancy, both master writers of suspense and political intrigue — and their alter egos James Bond and Jack Ryan respectively — are probably looking down from heaven in awe at the story created in Ma…

I know the TSA costs us billions every year, but for once, I think people need to appreciate them for the good things those folks do … especially in light of the possibilities that hijackers may have taken out Malaysian 370 last week. Rob Mark, Publ…

Le Tourneau University introduces 6th grade girls to aviation opportunities. In case you missed it, last week was Women in Aviation Worldwide Week, and this past weekend Women in Aviation International held its 25th annual International Women in …

Thanks to all of you for the great comments about The Aviation Minute‘s first episode. You’ll find episode 2 below, which actually evolved from comments related to the first show about the regional airline pilot shortage.  Show Updates: If you look …

When I created Jetwhine wayyyyy back in 2006, the tagline was pretty simple … “aviation buzz and bold opinion.” Since then, some 650 stories of fact and aviation opinion have appeared on these pages. Some of them have have driven readers simply craz…

If curiosity got you past the headline, stick with me for a few more words for an idea that might help save general aviation. If you’ve attended EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, even for a day, most likely its passionate enthusiasm dispersed a year’s worth o…

Like moths seeking illuminated warmth, pilots are genetically drawn to aviation accident reports. Most say they pore over them to perhaps discern details that might keep them from ending up as the subject of their own accident report. As they read, …

Technology rules the present and future of every aspect of aviation. It seems clear that pilots can’t fly today without it, or very well with it. If there’s handwriting on the hangar walls that pilots should be paying attention to it would be drone …

Taking a Bite Out of Those GA Accident Statistics Whenever a flight instructor finishes up a training session with a GApilot — new or old — they always hope that pilot really understood the lesson before they head out on their own. An instructor kno…

Although we’ve never met face to face for more than a few moments at EAA AirVenture, Paul and Victoria Rosales and I have been friends for more than a decade. After building their Van’s Aircraft RV-6A, Paul made its first flight on July 4, 2000. Eac…

Four years ago Sporty’s President & CEO Michael Wolf took time at year’s end to compile a list of the developing trends in general aviation. I look forward to it each year because Sporty’s probably has more contact with the spectrum of aviators, fro…

Because it’s usually informative and entertaining, I’m addicted to the bonus material that accompanies DVD movies. When Netflix delivered Disney’s Planes, I devoured the main course and couldn’t wait for the credits to end before digging into the de…

The outrage over the FAA’s recently announced medical certification policy to require pilots with a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or more to be examined for obstructive sleep apnea has been consistent across all channels. (And is it coincidence that t…

Regular Jetwhine readers might just remember a number of lively debates on this blog about what happened to Air France 447 over the South Atlantic in June 2009. A few of those conversations reached heated proportions too, with opinions … some from p…