FAA Posts

Officially, the FAA is seeking comments by February 28 on its draft Advisory Circular 150/5200-33C, Hazardous Wildlife Attractants On or Near Airports. After reading the 37-page document, here’s a shorter and more concise title, Wildlife NIMBY…

Total Coverage: The FAA Oxygen Mask StudyThe FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 sometimes asks more questions than it answers. For example, what was behind Section 536. Oxygen Mask Design Study?It requires the FAA to review and evaluate the design an…

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…

Everyone at PWK tower thought Bob Richards was interesting, in a rather curious way, when he began his air traffic control career back in the early 1980s. Not weird, but more quirky, like a guy holding back some part of his personality, at least at …

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…

Photo courtesy David Massey — Embry-Riddle Aeronautical UniversityPilot pride comes with the certificates and ratings achieved through successful checkrides. But like flying itself, maintaining one’s pilot pride properly is a never-ending ef…

Ah, springtime. Any day now it should finally stop snowing. As the snow melts, puddles, and sublimates from airport operation areas, airplanes will emerge from their T-hangar hibernations and start sniffing the sky on sunny weekends. In preparation …

Reading that the FAA will end its contract for the Direct User Access Terminal Service (DUATS) on May 16, 2018, caught me by surprise. The surprise was not that the FAA was not renewing its support of the service. The surprise was that it had alread…

As most sentient people know, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Or maybe it is just laziness because developing a new, more efficient way of educating pilots is too much time, effort, and money. Wh…

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…

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…

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 Privat…

It all began last month with the White House’s infrastructure plan that included severing the decades old ties between the FAA and its air traffic control system. President Trump said he supported the split, an effort that would be financed by…

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 …

This headline isn’t as strange as it sounds when you consider that the airlines are the leading promoters and supporters of privatizing air traffic control, and that the managers have often been at odds with the laborers (like pilots). Mix thi…

In aviation “coffin corner” is where bad things come together. I learned the term long ago, reading about the U-2, in Francis Gary Power’s book, if I remember correctly. When flying at the upper edge of its envelope, a single digit…

On the road to our favorite brewpub for date night I noticed a new billboard for the U.S. Marine Corps: “We don’t accept applications. Only commitments.” The smallest member of America’s armed forces, it meets its recruitment…

I was really starting to like the FAA the past few years, what with the Part 23 rewrite and passage if 3rd Class Medical reform. I saw them as more of a kinder, gentler agency … more let’s all work together for the greater good and that …

To keep up with the FAA, I subscribe to the news feeds for most of its branches. The other day, the Flight Standards Service (AFS) sent me notice of a draft policy document, and its subject, updated air cargo definitions and abbreviations caught my…

I’d like to interrupt your afternoon for just a minute before you head out the door for the weekend. Congress is expected to vote next week on another FAA funding extension – H.R. 636 – and the industry’s hoping it’s al…

One of the tried and true tropes of aviation is that, in general, the successful completion of a checkride marks the peak currency and proficiency of a pilot’s knowledge and skills. For those rarely exercised after that point, it is all downhi…

If the recently released Part 23 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking survives the comment and review period and makes it to a final rule, old, new, and prospective pilots will have to learn a new airplane lexicon. But don’t hyperventilate, like the …

Call it what you like, privatizing, corporatizing, or commercializing the FAA air traffic control system will ruin the foundation of the world’s largest, safest, and most diverse and complex national airspace system. Oh, and unless we stand up…

Promoting aviation to ensure its future viability and growth is something important to most of us who are involved with it personally or professionally. Individuals and organizations have promoted and pursued programs dedicated to inviting newcomers…