Blog Posts

US flight schools that cater to students from members of the European Union should be aware this source of students may soon dry up. The October IAOPA (Europe) e-newsletter reports that EASA is proposing that pilots will need a JAA/EASA license to …

Not long ago the FAA brought the number of fatal accidents in amateur-built experimental aircraft to the attention of the aviation community. It got more specific about the problem—and its solutions—in its Aviation Safety business plan for fiscal ye…

Subbing for the middle school gym teacher the other day, I reported for lunch duty at the conjoined cafeteria it shares with Omro High School. There I saw OHS Principal Brett Steffen, who acted on his aviation interest and earned his private pilot c…

Google Alerts is an efficient way to keep pace with the global aviation industry. But to mine prognosticative details about aviation’s future, one must read past the headlines.In a recent media release, “Boeing Projects Requirements fo…

Many, including yours truly, have been talking about the challenges facing aviation and the declining pilot population in the 21st century. Among them is the public perception that flying is mundane, as exciting as taking the bus or driving a car. …

Cessna’s new 162 Skycatcher has begun rolling out of the assembly hangar at Wichita’s Yingling Aviation across the ramp from Cessna’s mothership factory complex. Cessna expects to deliver about 50 of the Special Light Sport Aircraf…

When it comes to the future of flight training in America, I have some good news, and some not so good news. The good news is that given the attendance at the panel discussion of this subject, held the Saturday of EAA AirVenture, flight instructors…

For those skeptics who just a few years ago tore into Cessna Aircraft as the development of the Skycatcher began to move ahead, comes this photo of the mighty Cessna 162 going nose to nose with one of America’s finest F-18s in the ultimate st…

Like many pilots, I still haven’t gotten my head around all the details related to the Next Generation National Airspace System. EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, I figured, would be the perfect place to learn more about its components, like ADS-B, the …

That Future of Flight Training session at AirVenture a few weeks ago left me feeling pretty cranky … whiny even.  Not because of the session itself. All the folks on the panel, including moderator Greg Laslo, couldn’t have been nicer.Bu…

On many levels the 2010 Electric Aircraft World Symposium was a surprise. Sponsored by GE Aviation and held at the EAA museum on AirVenture Friday, I expected a geek fest with a small audience of a hundred or less, because that’s the space av…

Given the underwhelming participation at an 1130  panel discussion about the subject the Saturday of AirVenture Oshkosh, the general answer must be a big, boldfaced NO.For the discussion of  How to Grow the Pilot Population, just seven of the nearl…

An EAA AirVenture Oshkosh participant every year since 1978, I started spending the week there in 1989, when I began a decade-long tenure as Flight Training magazine’s booth boy.  I spent roughly half that time in the old exhibit buildings, no…

Sometimes we bloggers simply talk too much trying to express how we feel about something like AirVenture when simply letting the story tell itself works much better. With that clever insight in mind, may I present for your review, a few photos that…

For the decade I’ve lived just outside of Oshkosh, my favorite excursion of EAA AirVenture Oshkosh always takes place on Day 0. Otherwise known as setup up day, this year was little different, all because of the weather.To say we’ve had…

As I write this, the start of EAA AirVenture Oshkosh is five days away. Between the daily rain showers and afternoon thunderstorms (yes, it’s pretty soggy here) the air is growing increasingly alive with the sound of engines I seldom hear duri…

AirVenture 2010 will soon be home to thousands of airplanes, hundreds of thousands of people and dozens and dozens of great programs all designed to stimulate just about anyone’s curiosity about all things aviation. For the social-media curio…

It seems that the capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles will soon be complete. On July 1, DARPA announced a $33 million dollar contract for Northrop Grumman to demonstrate autonomous aerial refueling using two NASA Global Hawks. The company wil…

Each year since 2006 as AirVenture approaches, I take a minute to look back on the new friends I’ve made through our social media contacts on Twitter as well as here at Jetwhine. The blog is almost four years old, while my “JetwhineR…

One joy of small town living is our ability to watch the annual Independence Day fireworks from our deck when we don’t feel like joining the crowd counted in the thousands. Staged at a riverside park just a bit more than a quarter-mile away, …

Flight instructors who can remember the answers that returned a passing score on the Fundamentals of Instruction test they had to take should be able to tell you that Rote is the first of four levels of learning. If they possess a good memory (or th…

Last weekend I had the honor of being a guest on Airplane Geeks, thanks to my JetWhine.com co-conspirator Rob Mark, who is one of the quartet of regulars. It was my inaugural podcast (Episode 101), and I greatly enjoyed the wide ranging aviation con…

In an era when airlines report $2.7 Billion in fresh baggage-fee revenue from work they used to handle for free, is anything sacred? Probably not.In the U.S. though, Fixed Base Operators (FBO) still give away plenty for free and we all know it. Bu…

Is it karma that led NPR to broadcast a story on the dwindling number of student pilots in June? It reported an FAA estimate that this year’s number of student pilot certificates would total less than 60,000, a “10 year low.” If yo…