Airlines Posts

After reading “Fly the Sleazy Skies,” an editorial in the November 26 New York Times, my first reaction was to say unkind things about politicians. In public they say bad things about business aviation, and then they get to eat their ca…

In a recent Fast Lane post, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood wrote about the first meeting of the new aviation advisory committee that reports directly to him. Its members hail from airports, air carriers, management, labor, manufacturers, ge…

One of the truly enjoyable parts of life — for me at least — is the chance to travel often aboard a business airplane. If I’m not in the left seat, I’m usually pretty close as I was last week on board an Embraer Lineage enroute from We…

Ag flying has always interested me because it is one of the last bastions of professional stick and rudder flying. Sure, technology has infiltrated the cockpit, but here it replaces the flagman (human or otherwise) who helps the pilot apply even cov…

So, you wanna be a professional pilot, huh? Despite the economy, there will be a good number of vacant cockpit seats in the next decade or so as the last of the baby boomer bulge reaches 65, the airline pilot retirement age. If you are a Wall Stree…

In the August 31, 2009 Federal Register, the FAA published Notice of Proposed Rulemaking 09-08, Pilot in Command Proficiency Check and Other Changes to the Pilot and Pilot School Certification Rules. Its seemingly disparate proposals regarding fli…

For some time, I have stood firmly on the side of the people who believe a law is needed to keep airline passengers from ending up trapped on the ramp inside an airplane for hours at a time. But I think I’m starting to be swayed. Part of my am…

Qualified professionals to operate the world’s fleet of new, high-technology aircraft are more necessary than ever before, despite a growing proliferation of UAVs. Unfortunately, airline management and their pilots are not always on the same …

Broadcasting from high atop the massive MyTransponder mobile HQ the other night on the grounds at AirVenture 2009, I managed to add my two cents to a pretty nice Episode 58 of the Airplane Geeks podcast that I now co-host with Max Flight and Dan We…

I was a teenager in the 60’s which for me translates into a few key trigger points etched in my mind. The day President Kennedy was shot I was in shop class. When Martin Luther King was assassinated, I was off on active duty with the U.S. Air …

My thanks to AvWeek’s Benet Wilson for allowing me a little space on her blog while she was out on vacation. I’ll try and coax her to write something for Jetwhine. Rob GUEST POST: Business Aviation Is Still a Secret Posted by Bene…

Some folks really believe that the hit of this month’s AirVenture is going to be the arrival of the Airbus A380 at AeroShell Square. And no, the big deal this year is not going to be EAA’s director of public relations Dick Knapinski danc…

One thing you never want to do is give me a book to review. I read them quickly, but often take forever to getting around to telling people what I thought of the experience, which pretty much defeats the purpose of the review … at least from t…

One of Jetwhine’s earliest supporters – Matt Thurber – sent us this piece, one that I’m happy to publish. Matt is an old friend and a senior editor at Aviation International News, where I’m also a long-time contributor…

For as long as I can remember, Southwest Airlines, now the largest U.S. domestic airline, created in the 1970s by Herb Kelleher and Rollin King, has been the low-cost airline others most want to emulate. The need to copy isn’t just about mone…

I was privileged to have been invited to fly the Airbus A380 in Toulouse last week. I think it took about 4 seconds for me to decide when I was asked if I wanted the job of flying, evaluating and then writing up my findings on a few new pieces of on…

Years ago in another life, I was a VFR tower controller at a number of then really busy airports, Chicago Palwaukee (now Chicago Executive), Chicago DuPage, Chicago Meigs and Miami Opa-Locka. As a pilot and a newly minted flight instructor, I alw…

After reading reports of faltering flight schools, I wandered over to the Fox Valley Technical College’s aviation campus on the Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to see how things were going in flyover country. Not so bad, it see…

Ever since I can remember personal flying has always represented the lion’s share of the general aviation fleet and hours flown, measured by the FAA’s annual GA and Part 135 survey. The most current data is for 2007, well before the econ…

New Yorkers often stand as a national litmus test of just how tough Americans can be in a crisis. The weeks and months after 9/11 showed us that even they have their limits although most found a place somewhere to bury those ugly days.In just a few…

Across the aviation arc on the Internet many have bemoaned the April 9 passing of the old control tower at the Wittman Regional Airport, better known to the world by its location–Oshkosh. Photographers from the organization that  calls OSH ho…

Most airline passengers understand that pilots are required to qualify initially through FAA guidelines, are also required to regularly undergo a physical exam just to make sure some small problem doesn’t lead to incapacitation aboard a flight…

For writers, any kind of writers, the big league means writing books. My first foray came 20 years ago when Tab Books – eventually absorbed into the McGraw Hill network – gave me a chance to write about something I held near and dear to…

A recent New York Times’s article, “Drones Are Weapons of Choice in Fighting Qaeda, ” added to the mounting evidence that Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are changing the face of military aviation. This is especially true in the U.S. Air …