Airports Posts

Ed note: While this story is a bit dated, the winter-flying lessons are not.Inexperience, stupidity, get-home-itis — take your pick. Any of them applied to me one late November evening as I cruised Just east of Chicago’s Loop with an electric night…

The trip was going to be simple, I thought. My friend Steve would give me a ride from Pal-Waukee Airport PWK (now Chicago Executive) and drop me off at a short grass strip near Rockford (RFD), some 50 miles west, where I’d grab another Cessna …

Have you or someone you know ever considered becoming an air traffic controller for the FAA? I spent nearly 10 years of my aviation career working for the agency, and I loved the work. Coincidentally, the FAA just announced its latest recruiting dri…

In the Citation IIIConfessions of a New Corporate PilotLife would be sweet, I thought, now that I’d successfully passed my Cessna Citation III (CE-650) type rating check ride (this was a few years back). It meant I’d be flying my first…

(Reposted by request)Each time I stand near my desk, my eyes naturally focus on the framed cover of the August 1983 Flying magazine. Below it is page 100, the “I Learned About Flying from That” (ILAFFT), where my first column appeared. On i…

With climate change continuing the slow and steady march to ever warmer records, 2023 set a new record. (I can hear 2024 softly asking us to hold its beer.) “After seeing the 2023 climate analysis, I have to pause and say that the findings are…

One week from today, on Monday April 8, as the moon’s shadow slides across the eastern third of the United States, the Great North American Eclipse will darken the skies over 458 US airports that are within 50 miles of the eclipse’s cent…

Each year for as long as I can remember, Sporty’s Pilot Shop has sent its annual crystal airplane ornament with the Christmas card it sends to members of the aviation media. We hung our growing collection of them each year until our boys moved…

In June 2023, the FAA published a 167-page document outlining the agency’s desire to replace dozens of 40-year-old airport control towers with new environmentally friendly brick-and-mortar structures. These towers are, of course, where hundred…

Like many aviators, I’m a weather geek. The internet has sustained this addiction, and since 2002, The National Weather Services Aviation Weather Center has been the one weather product I cannot do without. And it will become more potent next …

Back in the day, airports without air traffic controllers working to maintain order and predictable behavior from the pilots flying to and from it were often referred to as “uncontrolled” because they did not have an air traffic control …

For reasons unexplained, when perusing the FAA website to see what might be new and/or interesting in advisory circular land, discovering a draft AC 150/5200, Reporting Wildlife Aircraft Strikes, triggered my mental recording of Tom Jones singing &#…

In Wisconsin, winter doesn’t give up easily. Even when it snows again in May, a not uncommon happening, one sure sign that summer is on its way and will soon bathe us in its warm sunshine is the release of the upcoming EAA AirVenture Notice th…

Aviation safety, when you get right down to it, is an endless round of risk assessment what ifs. There is much to learn when what ifs become real life right now. If you survive, that is. Another way to learn is from the decisions made by others. Ca…

Each of us has a flying family related not by blood or marriage but by the spirit of flight. Recognizing the contribution of an eligible flight instructor, maintenance technician, or FAA Safety Team teacher can be a challenge. So why not nominate th…

It seems a safe assumption that the only people who have not yet seen the spectrum of aviation damage wrought by Hurricane Ian are those have endured its torments and await reconnection to their electrical and data grids. The rest of us have witness…

It’s been slightly more than a year since I’ve flown on an airliner. I certainly didn’t miss airline travel in the middle of the pandemic, but this summer’s cancellation and delay insanity created an avoidance mindset that…

Published in 1997, Rinker Buck let the memories of his cross-country flight from New Jersey to California in a 1946 Piper PA-11 age for 30 years before sharing them in Flight of Passage. Like a fine single-malt whisky, time has refined the raw spiri…

For an unincorporated community in the Town of Utica and Winnebago County, Fisk, Wisconsin, is without a doubt the most well-known small town in the world of aviation. Also known as Fisk Corners, its concise Wikipedia page explains its notoriety in …

In between airplane spoon scoopfuls of his Runway Sundae at Kelley’s Country Creamery, the group’s pilots explained what attracted 15 aviators and their backcountry capable airplanes to an alfalfa field in Eden, which is just south of Fo…

During World War II the US military carved thousands of airfields into the American landscape. Of the hundreds that still serve our aerial infrastructure, few maintain a general connection to their original mission. An exception might be Utah’…

Everyone knows airline flying stopped being fun 20 or 30 years ago once a deregulated industry realized just how cheaply they could package and sell their product.Along with searching for a low-price fare these days, we’ve all had to get used…

Some may say the transition to Daylight Savings Time is the harbinger of warmer weather, but depending on where you reside (and Mother Nature’s unpredictable climate), this is little more than a chronological tease that primes the wanton emoti…

Researching the 75th anniversary of Project Thunderstorm, conducted at the U.S. Air Force’s All-Weather Flying Center in Wilmington, Ohio, from May to September, 1947, I admired the courage of the volunteer pilots, weather observers, and airbo…