Blogging Posts

I wonder if you remember what you were doing back in November 2006? Here’s a quick refresher of some of the top stories. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were getting hitched. The first hearings were taking place on The Hill to find a replacement for Se…

Pilots get rusty when they don’t fly often. No matter whether they hold a private pilot certificate or an ATP. Even a professional pilot with thousands of hours in their logbook can easily find themselves behind the power curve in an airplane. Stayi…

By Paula Williams In the 1990s, when I studied journalism at the University of Utah, my heroes were Edward R. Murrow, David Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein. I believed firmly in the importance of the Fourth Estate—journa…

The past decade has not been kind to Boeing. 737 MAX 8 Until 2018, America’s premier aircraft builder appeared extremely successful if money was the only assessment. Boeing also had a solid defense business with billions in military contracts in add…

Making a pragmatic go/no-go decision is the goal of preflight preparation. Regardless the destination or activity one must weigh all the participating variables. These can change because life is dynamic and our goals, priorities, and individual capa…

Since there’s no statute of limitations on dumb, I present to you a flight that was not one of my finer moments. My co-pilot’s name has been changed to be certain he doesn’t receive any head-shaking comments from his flying buddies. RM ____________…

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…

Unless you’re an aviation history geek or just a pilot who resides in Illinois, you might not have heard of Octave Chanute. I only knew the name early on when I joined the Air Force because there was a Base in southern Illinois named for the famed F…

Unless you’ve been a disconnected intraterrestial for the past week or so, you’ve probably seen the memes noting the triple one-week whammy of the change to daylight savings time (for those of you living in states subjected to it), a full moon, and …

Like many word merchants, I’m a logophile, a lover of words. When a new one catches my attention, meaning I can foresee some sentence in which it might be of use, I record it. For the past 15 years or so, my logo reliquary (“a container in which rel…

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 business…

For about a month that follows EAA AirVenture, the most popular question posed by friends and acquaintances is What is the most interesting airplane you saw? This has always been the question since I attended my first Oshkosh convocation in 1978, an…

Feedback is an essential nutrient to our emotional well-being because humans, as a group, all embody some degree of insecurity. This is especially true in activities where inconsistent variables provide challenges unique to every attempt of an activ…

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 looked …

Almost everywhere you turn among the hundreds of acres of airplanes and lovers of aviation are subtle (and no so subtle) signs that make it clear that the best way to improve the US Air Traffic Control (ATC) system is to “Modernize, Not Privatize.” …

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 compre…

Working my way home on US 20, about 10 miles outside of Casper, Wyoming, I approached the entrance to the Natrona County International Airport. For a moment I debated making the left turn because nearly all of the airports I’d visited in the precedi…

There is no other way to put it. The Planes of Fame Air Museum overwhelmed me. Drowning in the aviation history it showcases, and the aviation provenance of the airport in Chino, California, where it presents it, I don’t know where to start this pie…

Following the airport signs posted along the historic path of Route 66 added some welcome surprises on the journey from Chicago to Santa Monica, but several airports were predetermined destinations. One of them was Arizona’s Kingman Airport (IGM). B…

If you are confident in your proficiency in flying fundamentals and are willing to put it to the test, consider a cross-country flight to the West Bend (WI) Municipal Airport (ETB) this coming Saturday, September 10, for Kettle Moraine EAA Chapter 1…

The last thing I expected to find on the historic route of US 66 at the edge of the small town of Weatherford, population 10,833 (according to the 2010 census), in western Oklahoma was not only a first-rate air and space museum, but one affiliated w…

On a journey from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California, that followed the historic route of what was US Route 66, I kept my promise to heed the little green signs I passed that pointed toward small town airports. Riding down the curving dr…

The EAA AirVenture grounds on the Wittman Regional Airport cover a vast area. It is a hike and a half to reach its back corners, but it is worth it because it is where the interesting airplanes seems to be. Take this skeletal Cub-like airplane made …

When Mother Nature cooperates, Wednesday is traditionally the day that those who arrived at EAA AirVenture last weekend leave town, and those who will go home this coming weekend arrive. That sort of happened today, but Mom’s rainy tantrum demanded …