Blog Posts

I’m made quite a career out of whining about the aviation industry, but even I need someone’s shoulder to moan on every so often. As I sit here in a hotel room in Bordeaux trying to get back to the states from France using an American/Ib…

From aviation’s infancy, the US military has been a leading source of aerial innovations and educator of those who put those winged aviation innovations to work. With the end of each conflict, pilots, technicians, and engineers used  their tra…

First thing last Monday morning I read that US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was scheduled to hold an hour-long meeting with aviation officials from Boeing, Honeywell, and United Airlines later that day at Boeing HQ. The announced …

Last Saturday was not a good day for transportation, but for once the bad news was not about aviation. An immense cruise ship — the Costa Concordia — capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the west coast of Italy where rocks near the sho…

Wandering through a Google collection of aviation news, Combat Aviation Brigade Welcomes a New Unit, New Aircraft, grabbed my attention. I’m a dedicated rotorhead, helicopters comprise the majority of the US Army’s fleet, and I was hopin…

A college professor of mine told me a story years ago — OK … MANY years ago — about how solving one problem often creates another. Boy … did our switch from Feedburner to Mail Chimp subscriber software — not to mention …

In case today’s title has you wondering, don’t worry. We haven’t decided to farm our content production out to a cheap, new labor source.In 5 and a half years of writing Jetwhine, the world has continued to evolve around us althou…

In a general sense, I knew that NextGen would be the end of the VORs that have reliably led aviators for decades. But 10 days before Christmas, the retirement of these familiar white cones is much more real.That’s when the FAA published its r…

An old-school reader, annually I must winnow my collected ink-on-paper titles to make shelf room for Christmas newcomers. As they have for decades, the works of Richard Bach survive every purge.Like many others, I met Richard through the pages of J…

A recent issue of AOPA’s Flight School Business included this story: FAA Updates CFI Renewal Clinic Guidelines. It referenced the updated advisory circular that covers FIRCs and noted that the FAA added angle of attack (AoA) to the list of cor…

Curiosity often costs me a lot of sleep. Tonight I saw that TV commercial about the guys who captured some cool, outer space video using a weather balloon. So Google and I went looking for them. I found JP Aerospace. I don’t know if they did t…

From Paris —There’s no small amount of irony that AMR, parent of American Airlines and American Eagle, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection — a move certain to save the carrier millions over the next few years — only a day befo…

Serving the military in AfghanistanAccording to the The Daily Planet, the blog of Air & Space Smithsonian, in November troops in Afghanistan will likely be resupplied by the K-Max, an automated cargo helicopter. The video is from a test earl…

Test pilots and flight test engineers are an amazing and interesting group of people. But they are deadly serious about their work because focus and attention to detail preserves not only their lives, but those who go aloft in the aircraft they are …

By Douglas Boyd Ph.DOne of every six adult Americans is afraid to fly according to the Journal of Travel Research. Frightened folks — who BTW cross all socio-economic lines — take 66% fewer commercial airline trips than those who enjoy time alof…

With her saucy style, Gail Collins is one of my favorite New York Times Op-Ed authors. This week she wrote about “The Best Perk in Politics.” Naturally, she’s talking about business jets and all the free rides Rick Perry took on th…

Editor Note: At least a couple of times each week, someone sends an unsolicited story trying to convince us to publish it. More often than not, the material simply doesn’t fit. It’s either too long, too sales focused or – as happen…

A fuel-efficient idea by the Institution of Mechanical EngineersNow that I have your attention, the concept of fuel efficient formation flight for airliners is one of four areas covered in the United Kingdom’s Institution of Mechanical Eng…

Some functions come naturally to most humans, eating, sleeping, even defending ourselves … at least most of the time. But the message the House of Representatives just sent FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt with passage of the European Emissions…

At the August meeting about the AOPA Student Retention Initiative, a CFI in the audience suggested replacing a real airplane, the most expensive line of the flight training bill, with a simulator. Not totally, mind you, but enough to get students st…

I have always felt I’d be doing my flight students a disservice not to mention that while soaring aloft is an unmatched experience, it can and will snuff out a life in a moment if the pilot becomes too complacent … no matter how sophisti…

John Monnett has been dreaming about a homebuilt jet since the 1980s, so one can only imagine the barely controlled eagerness that filled him with the first flight of the SubSonex. And one can only imagine the internal debate between making that fli…

Photoguy73 over southeastern Minnesota in 2008.Here in Wisconsin the maples are beginning their fall fashion season. Their shimmering coats in shades of reds and yellows blaze in the afternoon’s low, saturated light. It is a quiet refuge o…

Everyone knows about the user fee battle. How could you not. Current attack aside, we’ve been in this fight on and off for years. The problem though is that when you hear  similar stories from a dozen different blogs, magazines, podcasts…