Business Aviation Posts

Anyone who follows the happenings of the FAA and air traffic control knows John Carr. He spent more than a couple of years at the helm of NATCA, the controller’s union, and was Pat Forrey’s predecessor. I had the pleasure of interviewing…

And just when you think almost no one notices anything you write comes a great article like this one from FlightGlobal’s Runway Girl, Mary Kirby.  She interviewed me a few days ago when she realized she wouldn’t be able to make it…

It doesn’t seem possible that it’s been nearly a year in the making, but it has. When I suggested a get together for aviation bloggers last fall I never thought I’d see much interest. But was I wrong. By Thanksgiving I’d had …

Those of us who have either flown business airplanes or have been lucky enough to travel in the back – a few of us qualify for both – are light years ahead of the people we are still trying to convince about the value of personal air tra…

Close on the heels of this 4th of July comes the realization that the most heated presidential election we will probably see in our life times is really upon us. The relentless drum-beat from both nominees is that this nation is in serious need of s…

Stand with me brothers and sisters of the air and remember June 11, 2008. On this day upstart Icon Aircraft left the cloistered alcove where the choir of aviators sings. It took the public pulpit, inhaled deeply, and sang in pure notes to the congre…

I walked out in the alley on Saturday near my home just north of Chicago and was surprised to see a bunch of kids all staring up at the azure-blue sky to the north. “Hey guys. What’s going on?” I asked. One small boy said nothing a…

As much as stay awake at night wondering how many people around the globe are clicking through the stories here at Jetwhine, I know we are only one small fish in the sea of people who think they know just about everything when it comes to air travel…

Bloggers think they know everything. Or at least that’s what we believe when we get started as bloggers. Once we really get up a good head of blogger steam though, we realize just how little of a good blog is about us and how much of it is abo…

This year, AirVenture will include something never before seen at the massive annual trek to Oshkosh … bloggers coming together to talk about the two things they love best … airplanes and social media. Will you be one of them?The First…

Given the world’s sorry state and aviation’s place in it, hope for the future is at the coffin corner. To help maintain that delicate balance it is natural to withdraw into–and protect–our little corner of aviation’s di…

Demographers will quickly tell you that a low birthrate combined with an aging population is not the key to a sustainable future for any population. Welcome to the situation that describes the American airmen who hold a current flight instructor ce…

The Cirrus Design folks were in Chicago the other night on the first stop of a 22 city nationwide-tour promoting not only the G-3 version of their top selling airplane, but also a special new version of Garmin’s popular G-1000 avionics system …

Although this interview DayJet’s Bruce Holmes gave the Atlantic.com’s James Fallows has the smell of fluff at a time when customers and industry pundits are clamoring for considerably more substance, it is the best out there about the cu…

AOPA ran a Town Hall meeting in Chicago the other night and Phil Boyer asked the group a penetrating question. How do we convince more people to learn to fly? Despite being a flight instructor and a communicator all my life, I didn’t have a go…

He’s back! Funny how Mr. Know-It-All seems to appear just at the right time, like now when everyone is completely wiped out from 10 days of absolutely awful airline news.So here’s the question. But wait, perhaps I should mention the pri…

Come July of this year, aviation bloggers will find it impossible not to answer the call to our Mecca for the first Aviation Blog Fest in history – I think. In addition to a chance to hang out with many other very cool aviation bloggers and r…

I had a call today from one of the major TV networks.The reporter was hoping I’d sit in front of a TV camera for a story about the grounding of hundreds of Delta and American Airlines MD-80 flights in the wake of another FAA airline maintenan…

Last week’s report from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Inspector General, at first glance at least, looks like another nail in the coffin for business aviation. The DOT report – designed to show which aviation group actual…

When the airlines start hiring, it doesn’t take long for flight schools large and small to start wailing about the shortage of certificated flight instructors. As FAA airmen certificate data proves, this is utter nonsense.More pilots hold cur…

In the February 1908 Scientific American, Wilbur Wright wrote in Flying as Sport that up to that time “men have taken up flying partly from scientific interest, partly from sport, and partly from business reasons….” But recreationa…

Never in my quietest moments did I imagine the conversation about FAA and its overtime policy was going to erupt into such a round of air rage of sorts. Luckily only a few of the hostile words were directed at me personally. But the passion of the r…

So tell me how you really feel!Believe it or not, I didn’t buy everything that came from 800 Independence hook line and sinker, any more than I would totally believe something I hear from 1325 Massachusetts Avenue 100 percent.I simply publis…

Following close on the heels of Scott’s Monday post about a serious lack of stick and rudder skills comes this video of a BAE 146 landing at London City Airport.  Attaching the word “hard,” to the word “landing” he…