Blog Posts

I’m not an economist so perhaps I tend to oversimplify some things, but I find the concept of supply and demand a bit puzzling, especially when it comes to parts of our own industry that claim to focus on the need to constantly improve custome…

Well, Spirit Airlines has finally gone and done it. They’ve taken what used to be a really nice product – I flew them often between ORD and TPA until they dropped the service – and turned it into the closest thing to a city bus po…

If my homebuilding buddies are a typical sample of the amateur-built airplane community, there’s a lot of confusion about what led to the new policy the FAA has proposed. (See Homebuilt Aircraft: How Much is More than Half?) My friends are so…

This is the seventh anniversary of the terror attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington that included the hijacking of four airliners eventually used as suicide bombs, the first time we all learned that sitting back and hoping for the best as…

To most pilots who fly over it, Liberty Landing Airport (4MO4) isn’t anything special. On the sectional chart it’s just another private airport, an empty circle around an R that stands for restricted about 20 nm east, southeast of Kansas…

I picked up this video of an F-16 making a dead-stick landing into Elizabeth City NC from my friend Patrick at, not surprisingly, Patrick’s Video site. I don’t know where he finds all this cool stuff.If you EVER wondered what an emergen…

As another part of our Labor Day coverage the other day, I took part in recording a new podcast with the Aviation Geeks, Max Flight and Courtney Miller. We hit quite a few topics related to labor that made for a great show. Give it a listen. …

It’s always bugged me that I need two sectional charts–Green Bay and Chicago–to get from my home in OSH to my family growing-up grounds west of the commercial Class B airspace plug stuck in the ground at ORD.It’s more than …

During the late 1990s I participated in the FAA Pilot Proficiency Award Program. Each year, in return for attending one safety seminar and logging three hours with an instructor (one each for airwork, patternwork, and hoodwork) I met the biennial fl…

Finally, a topic I know almost nothing about … flying a blimp, or as it is more commonly known in FAA language, an airship. This well-produced short video tour and introductory flying lesson of the newest of the MetLife airships, the Snoopy 3…

Before you all begin sending shipping the uglygrams, let me tell you that neither the title of today’s editorial, nor the concept behind it originated with me. The idea that air traffic controllers are working less traffic these days – …

At first glance the Gemini 100 looks like a compact water-cooled aircraft engine with four opposing cylinders. Narrow and not very tall or deep, it’s roughly the same size as a Continental O-200 and has the same output, 100 hp. That’s w…

If time is short, never ask Dick and Sharon Starks what they’ve been up to lately. Both pilots, these retired schoolteachers have a full flying life that any pilot would envy.  Anxious to see Sharon’s new airplane, a Morane Model L para…

To most people, owning a web site address with their name is something to truly covet. What better way to tell the world through a good blog what we think about everything that’s wrong or right with the world.But what happens when someone els…

The post John Carr put up yesterday about the U.S. DOT’s proposed new guidelines for administering drug tests to some aviation employees would be absolutely hilarious if it wasn’t so sick. John posted comments from the general counsel fo…

Fresh on the heels of Sunday’s post about the flavor of labor relations that led PATCO controllers to call a strike against the FAA in 1981, I added a question I asked acting FAA administrator Bobby Sturgell about employee morale during the &#…

I remember the morning of August 3, 1981 vividly as I turned on the TV to find news stories of air traffic controller members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization-PATCO-marching with picket signs at the base of the tower at Chica…

It seems fitting that my fourth decade of EAA AirVenture attendance starts like the first, meeting those who made the history I read about as a kid.On my first trip to Oshkosh in 1978 I met Pappy Boyington and George Gay (see EAA AirVenture Forums…

From AirVenture 2008 – Van’s Aircraft is a small company that’s put a big smile on faces who’ve taken to the sky in the company’s line of RVs. The handful of employees also wear big smiles, even after standing in the ho…

From AirVenture 2008 – As promised in a recent post (Backyard Flying: Fun & Cheap), I ambled down to the lightplane area at the south end of the EAA AirVenture site to try on Valley Engineering’s Backyard Flyer. It fit!To most peop…

From AirVenture 2008 – If I say that most CFIs make lousy business people, I’m unlikely to offend too many people … some for sure, just not too many I’ll wager. The reason is simple. Most CFIs do make lousy business people be…

From AirVenture 2008 – Given the competition, most product announcements at EAA AirVenture draw fair to middling crowds. That’s what I expected for the AeroShell Square debut of what the Martin Aircraft Company calls “the worldR…

From AirVenture 2008 – Five minutes before the blog session began at AirVenture yesterday, I was wondering if the whole thing had been such a good idea. There were five people in the room. Maybe it was too soon to talk social media.Then, as t…

From AirVenture 2008 – There’s nothing quite like meeting up with a bunch of pilot buddies on a Saturday morning for a great breakfast. The social aspect of flying, in fact, is one of the best ways for newer pilots to learn from more exp…