FAA Posts

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 published pa…

Talking recently with Michael Maya Charles, author of Artful Flying, our conversation turned a pilot’s passion for flight, for deft stick-and-rudder skills. Why, we wondered, does a pilot’s ardor wane from the student high as flight hours grow? Whil…

I apologize if what I’m about to say causes anyone to cough up their lunch, but I’m going to completely agree with something that former FAA Administrator and now current Aerospace Industries CEO Marion Blakey said a few months ago. Yes, agree … at …

As you read this, the ugly weather should have departed California headed east and Garry Mitchell should be taking off for another day’s flying. Mitchell’s office is often a bit of a moving target, so this week he’ll spend most of his time on board …

People who fly airplanes for a living often share some of the same ailments in their older years found among other workers who also operate obnoxious moving machinery … jack hammers, high-speed riveting machines, drag racers. My wife and daughter ar…

For those readers who may not follow everything aviation all the time, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was taken to task a few months ago for suppressing huge amounts of safety data related to the aviation industry. The info…

Another editor for a world-famous aviation magazine told me not long ago that he actually read my Jetwhine piece about the classic airline menus from a few decades back. Actually I think they harkened back to another lifetime in this industry. Besid…

To most people, the word deal implies something too good to miss … think, “Let’s Make a Deal,” or “No Big Deal.” But in aviation, and air traffic control specifically, a deal is an ugly gremlin of a phrase that implies a problem – a big problem – to…

Knowing when to call for help is a critical element in learning to fly, in fact, it’s pretty darned important for survival in life as well. In an emergency, most people often don’t have the mental and sometimes the physical skills to see them throu…

A Piper Navajo Chieftain crashed just after takeoff Saturday into the icy waters off Kodiak Island Airport about 250 miles southwest of Anchorage. Initial reports indicate the left nose baggage door on the aircraft opened up right after liftoff. Six…

You have to love the fact that the GOP supports business, even if it is mostly the Fortune 100s. The Minneapolis Star Tribune today reported that the Grand Old Party announced Northwest Airlines as their choice to be the official airline for this s…

Did you see the note last week from the United branch of the Air Line Pilots Association? United pilots didn’t want to take the heat for the huge round of delays and flight cancellations that good old UAL dropped on passengers around the system when…

A friend in DC just e-mailed this update to the Jetwhine news room. From the wastelands of New Mexico comes the news – no, Eclipse is fine, for now. This is certain to become THE news story of 2007, from the same state that brought you presidential …

While Kate Hanni’s name may not ring a bell in everyone’s head immediately, it certainly should for anyone who flies aboard a commercial airliner this holiday travel season … or any other time of the year actually. Hanni was recently named one of t…

Now that Senator Dick Durbin (D)IL has demanded action from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Inspector General we can only hope acting FAA administrator Bobby Sturgell is listening. The problem at hand is not really a tough one and is somethi…

The Christmas season may be a bit barren this year for the people who work for United Airlines. Not of course the management folks. Somehow their piece of the pie never seems to come out damaged when things are tight. I was thinking more of the ra…

Some of you might recall a post from a few months back in which I expressed disdain that former ALPA president Duane Woerth had in a Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post, signed on to the same old tired airline/FAA line about what’s wrong wit…

The National Transportation Safety Board met Thursday to talk about an industry epidemic … pilot fatigue. It’s about time. The Air Line Pilots Association folks were nice enough to let me write an article about fatigue in their magazine … 18 years a…

Jim Ott wrote an interesting article in last week’s Aviation Week and Space Technology called Surly Skies about … what else, airline travel. He said, “Any adaptation airlines make to counter the negatives of air travel seem to be useless … amid the …

NASA’s administrator Michael Griffin said he made a mistake the other day and for many people that was enough. People do make mistakes and he said he was sorry. Griffin was answering demands from the public and the press about his agency’s refusal t…

The only thing I find surprising about the revelation that NASA has been sitting on a mountain of aviation safety data is that anyone is even remotely surprised about the way that agency operates. OK, maybe the fact that NASA sat on the data – 24,00…

John Carr’s blog – the Main Bang – posted an interesting piece the other day. He looked at pay scales for entry level controllers and found they will actually be paid less than janitors in Santa Clara County. But people still seem to be signing up f…

I’ve been really touched by how many regular readers noticed that Jetwhine just turned one. A year ago I had dinner with a buddy in Wichita who seriously questioned why I was trying to blend a little new media talk with the rest of the aviation worl…

I heard an interesting interview on NPR last week with Richard Hurd from Cornell University. He said the use of labor strikes across the U.S. has declined by 90 percent since the 1970s. When Hurd began to focus on the Reagan Era, I expected to hear …