Aviation Marketing Posts

Instead of Ghostly Nostalgia, a Living Connection to What WasPandemic stir-craziness manifested itself on a glorious mid-August Sunday afternoon. From my second-floor window, I watched scattered cumulus clouds in a blue sunny sky dapple my small to…

With thunderstorms lined in assaulting waves on radar and pathfinding drops splattering themselves against my office window, changing my Saturday morning plans for a two-wheel ride to Rio, Wisconsin, seemed prudent. Remembering that the EAA Aviation…

SM SpanglerIt is a statistical reality that regardless of the methods of dissemination, roughly 10 percent of the population will not get the word. Or they will forget they got the word and reflexively follow their atavistic inclinations. Some crea…

S.M. SpanglerHumans hate uncertainty, so after reading EAA’s early morning email on May 1 that confirmed what many expected, uncounted thousands of aviation-oriented minds posed, in one form or another, an unsettling question, “With no …

Bob Crandall retired in 1998 as chairman, president, and CEO of AMR, parent organization to American Airlines and while many people today might not remember his name, they’ll pretty quickly recognize what he created while he was at the helm.B…

When things go chronically wrong in aviation, a safety stand down is an efficient and effective treatment because you stop all operations and dissect what you’ve been doing and how you’ve been doing it to ferret out—and fix—the root caus…

It’s tempting to forge a synonymous connection between flying cars and urban air mobility (UAM). That would be unfair because, for a number of reasons, the latter has a viable future where entrepreneurs have unsuccessfully been developing, pro…

There’s no denying that general aviation is enduring an uncertain transition from its rose-colored past to a foggy future. What worked yesterday, when aviation was more widely embraced by the offspring of those alive when Lindbergh flew the At…

It’s been so long that I don’t remember when I started reading the FAA Aerospace Forecast, but I anticipate each update with eager curiosity, and the FAA just released its crystal ball for Fiscal Years 2019-2039. What interests me most a…

Spring in Wisconsin came with the Easter Bunny. With sunshine and temperatures climbing above the 40s for the first time, and shooting for the mid 70s, it seemed the perfect day to go flying. Curious to witness whether others were so inspired, after…

Reading that the US Air Force will be requesting proposals from engine makers to propel the B-52’s active-duty service through 2050 didn’t surprise me. It continues the decades-long return on aircraft investment, its ability to continue …

Waggism, playful lightheartedness, is the last thing one would expect to see at a facility dedicated to the deadly serious business of building FAA-certificated aircraft. But then I met Sally, her name printed on an aluminum placard in red Sharpie o…

No two repetitions of the the annual gathering of the aviation faithful at EAA AirVenture at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, are the same. But in attending the event for the 40th time, I can honestly say that all of them share clearl…

Just six months on the job as Enstrom Helicopter’s production test pilot, Cody Parkovich traces his position to the night he was bartending in Marinette, Wisconsin, just across the river from Menominee, Michigan. “That night I found out,…

Drawn to small airports that will not chase me away from the runway’s sideline where I capture the ground-t0-air photos of the homebuilt airplane builders I profile, each is a still-life statement on the vitality of general aviation.  All too …

Asking newly met people their occupations is a phatic conversation starter that leads me down the semantic rabbit hole. Upon learning that I’m a word merchant, they ask what I write about. After hearing “aviation,” they ask if I…

“Convenience,” wrote Tim Wu in The Tyranny of Convenience, “more efficient and easier ways of doing personal tasks—has emerged as perhaps the most powerful force shaping our individual lives and our economies.” From a passeng…

Deciding which breakout sessions was a vexing challenge at the Redbird Migration Flight Training Symposium held at the EAA Aviation Center in Oshkosh between October 10 and 18. Participants could pick six of 17 breakout sessions, with only four repe…

After 40 years of flying, flight instructing and communicating throughout the aviation business, it’s almost impossible for me to remember that of all my flight instructors, I almost allowed my first ago to drive me completely away from the bu…

Eternal optimism is a dominant trait among aviation innovators, and nowhere is it more enduring than with those who dream of flying cars. Reading about the latest member of this community, Lilium, which just raised $90 million in financing, the Germ…

An AirVenture visit to the EAA Innovation Center is always worthwhile because you never know what you’ll find in its cool, air conditioned and dry interior. Some of the cooler technology was a 3D printer that was hard at work recreating what l…

On the eve of the Congressional vote to privatize the US air traffic control system, I made an informal, unscientific general aviation study of a nation—Canada—that privatized its system in 1996, when Transport Canada sold its air traffic control an…

Carrying no expectations, I walked through the main door of Seattle’s Museum of Flight when it opened last Friday and was immediately overwhelmed by the airy, light filled Great Gallery. With aircraft of all types from all eras, it provides a …

Public use airports are an essential (and underappreciated) component of America’s infrastructure. The current total, provided by the the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, counts 5,145 public use aerodromes. What’s really interesting …