Blog Posts

Aviation is not exempt from the aphorism that what goes around comes around. When humans first flew on powered wings, their fields of operation were unimproved, what military aviation now describes as austere. (While the people who selected this wo…

As a word merchant focused on subjects aeronautical, people often ask if I am a pilot. Because a pilot certificate does not die (unless the holder surrenders or the FAA revokes it), my answer is always affirmative (pilot speak for you betcha!). Usua…

To reduce aircraft fuel consumption and reduce the aviation’s contribution to the CO2 saturated atmosphere, the FAA implemented 42 new Optimized Profile Descents that allow planes to make a low-power continuous descent from cruising altitude at the…

With 2022 stranded at airports across the land thanks to the cancelation of thousands of flights, let’s pass the time with a game of FAA Commercial Astronaut Questions and Answers. Let’s start with the obvious: Did you know there was a list of FAA C…

Admiring historic airplanes from a museum floor is a big-picture perspective of their contributions, whatever they may be, to aviation. Regardless the aeronautical era or the scope of the story, the viewer’s mind readily puts the winged artifact bef…

Air Zoo Aerospace & Science Experience CEO Troy Thrash said the Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless on display in the World War II exhibit was the team’s first Lake Michigan restoration project. The eight-year effort took place years ago in a building in a rest…

When it comes to aircraft, restoration and reincarnation may seem like synonyms, but there is a significant difference that transcends semantics. Restoration is rehabilitating an airplane to a former point in its existence. Certainly, this is what t…

In introducing the Air Zoo Aerospace & Science Experience, its president, Troy Thrash said it was purposely designed “to be a different environment for an air and space museum.” There is no better example of this than the exhibit focused on the luna…

What makes the aerospace menagerie on display at Kalamazoo’s Air Zoo special is its unique airplanes, as in the only one in the world, the sole survivor of a specific make and model. With its black skin fading into the main display floor’s studio li…

Illuminating the spectrum of science, technology, and engineering opportunities embodies for people of all ages is one of the premeditated objectives of the Air Zoo Aerospace & Science Experience in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Its many hands-on youth and a…

Mostly because of its alterative name, I’ve known about the Kalamazoo Air Zoo for decades, but despite a number of trips to mitten Michigan on other assignments, I never made time to visit its home at the southwest corner of the Kalamazoo/Battle Cre…

Meeting at U.S. Air Force survival school in 2007 and reflecting on the unexpected opportunities that introduced them to aviation, Liz Greene and Kristen Franke conceived an idea that became the nonprofit PreFlight Camp whose mission is to make girl…

American Champion 7KCAB Although this story is old, the details and the learning experiences are as valuable today as they were years ago. Rob __________________________________________________ Inexperience, stupidity, get-home-itis …

Over the decades, the Young Eagles program has given millions of youngsters what, in many cases, were their inaugural flights in an aircraft smaller than a transport category airliner. This includes my kids and my grandchildren, which gives you an i…

Mentally treading water in Afghanistan’s déjà vu cesspool, I take little comfort in the images that bracket my office clock and remind me to live a life guided by pragmatic absolutes. In the right hand frame, some of my shipmates are pushing over …

My close friends know that as a pilot I have one deep-seated fear. If I should ever buy it in an airplane, I don’t want it to be for something that’s classically not me, something I’ve spent my career as a flight instructor campaigning against, like…

With a week to reflect and sort the interactions and activities of EAA AirVenture 2021, my challenge was to quantify why it was the most enjoyable show of this millennium. The easiest quantifier was the people who attended. With few exceptions over …

Selling aviation stuff to pilots and flying aficionados is one of the foundational enterprises of EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. It is a multilayered effort. EAA sells indoor and outdoor exhibit space to companies, and employing a variety of tactics, some …

After we all took a year off in 2020, I hit the road this morning for Wittman Regional Airport with a tick of trepidation nibbling at my soul. It’s Zero Day, the Sunday before the show starts and all the exhibitors are scurrying about trying to get …

AirVenture 2021 is really happening next week in Oshkosh beginning July 26 and the pent-up demand for aviation excitement/geeky experiences is expected to run high. Each year – except 2020 of course – the show attracts tens of thousands of parents a…

Some days, opening my email inbox is like Christmas. This day’s present was from Ryan Short, a reader, aerial photographer, and part-time flight instructor who works with students by appointment through Texas Tailwheel Flight Training. Flying his 19…

The immediate and long-term consequences of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruling on Warbird Adventures, Inc., et. al. v. FAA, which redefined the educational mission of flight training as the “carriage of persons for compensat…

Every color used in the construction of a parachute has a purpose. On some, it satisfies the owner’s aesthetic. For others, it is advertising. In the military, the color serves a specific requirement for visibility, or the lack of it. And then there…

A pandemic addiction to YouTube has delivered consistently interesting, entertaining, and educational interludes when its selection algorithm introduced me to Ward Carroll, a retired naval flight officer who spent most of his career as a radar inter…