General Posts

Remembering Gordon Baxter: Bax Seat was a Flying Magazine Reader Favorite
Aug. 19, 2024

Remembering Gordon Baxter: Bax Seat was a Flying Magazine Reader Favorite

(Reposted by request)Each time I stand near my desk, my eyes naturally focus on the framed cover of the August 1983 Flying magazine. Below it is page 100, the “I Learned About Flying from That” (ILAFFT), where my first column appeared. On i…
AirVenture Preflight: Go/No-Go 2024
July 22, 2024

AirVenture Preflight: Go/No-Go 2024

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…
What Makes an Ace in the 21st Century?
Feb. 18, 2024

What Makes an Ace in the 21st Century?

When it was revealed in a BBC interview, The Fighter Pilots Hunting Houthi Drones Over the Red Sea, that Marine Captain Earl Ehrhart, an AV-8B Harrier pilot aboard the USS Bataan, had downed seven drones, subsequent stories on this action hailed him…
2024: Looking Up with Eager Anticipation
Jan. 7, 2024

2024: Looking Up with Eager Anticipation

If you keep up with current events, 2024 has the potential for global grimness. All that’s needed is for China to make a move on Taiwan to fan conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East into World War III, and the US political polarization to de…
Thunderbird, Final Piston Bendix Trophy Race Winner
Aug. 10, 2023

Thunderbird, Final Piston Bendix Trophy Race Winner

Wandering among the flying machines that carpet the Oshkosh acreage during EAA AirVenture 2023, nothing of interest caught my eye until it spied an immaculate blue P-51C Mustang. On its flawless flanks, in sunshine-yellow letters was its name, Thund…
EAA AirVenture 2023: Change is the Only Constant
July 30, 2023

EAA AirVenture 2023: Change is the Only Constant

In decades past, back when its moniker matched its location, one of Oshkosh’s primary draws was learning about new products and programs that their creators debuted on aviation’s primary stage, where an eager audience hungrily consumed e…
Black Friday Aviation Inspiration
Nov. 28, 2022

Black Friday Aviation Inspiration

Every seven years, Thanksgiving and my birthday get together on the same day. My oldest boy and his family made the 10-hour drive from Missouri to deliver themselves as the best present I could have ever hoped for, and that included Boomer, their 2-…
Celebrating Ernie Gann’s Typewriter on His Birthday
Oct. 17, 2022

Celebrating Ernie Gann’s Typewriter on His Birthday

When I returned home from the EAA Aviation Museum to start writing this I discovered that today, October 13, 2022, is Ernest K. Gann’s 112th birthday. This is significant because he owned the subject of my photo session, an Olivetti Lettra 22 …
Recommended Reading: Rinker Buck’s Flight of Passage
Sept. 5, 2022

Recommended Reading: Rinker Buck’s Flight of Passage

Published in 1997, Rinker Buck let the memories of his cross-country flight from New Jersey to California in a 1946 Piper PA-11 age for 30 years before sharing them in Flight of Passage. Like a fine single-malt whisky, time has refined the raw spiri…
Words Versus Military Tuskegee Top Gun Actions
Aug. 22, 2022

Words Versus Military Tuskegee Top Gun Actions

President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948. It mandated the desegregation of the US military. Truman stood firm in the face of pushback from politicians and military officers of all ranks from all branches who opposed an int…
Wings Set Aviation Movie Standard in 1927
Aug. 8, 2022

Wings Set Aviation Movie Standard in 1927

Much has been made of the actors portraying naval aviators in Top Gun: Maverick being filmed in the aft seat of an F-18 Super Hornet to capture the sagging distortion of real-life g-forces. Compare that to the challenges faced by Charles “Budd…
Egrett & Perlan 2, AirVenture’s High Flyers
July 27, 2022

Egrett & Perlan 2, AirVenture’s High Flyers

Attracted to unusual and unknown aircraft, I walked past the record-setting Airbus Perlan 2 stretching its 84-foot wingspan across AirVenture’s Boeing Plaza to find out what the large, white turboprop was and why its fuselage was a series of l…
Super Cubs Fly In for Ice Cream Before AirVenture
July 25, 2022

Super Cubs Fly In for Ice Cream Before AirVenture

In between airplane spoon scoopfuls of his Runway Sundae at Kelley’s Country Creamery, the group’s pilots explained what attracted 15 aviators and their backcountry capable airplanes to an alfalfa field in Eden, which is just south of Fo…
Counting Down to Top Gun: Maverick
May 16, 2022

Counting Down to Top Gun: Maverick

As one crawling into the final third of life, I’m in no hurry to write my final chapters. That said, May 27—when Top Gun: Maverick is due in our local movie house—cannot get here soon enough. To accelerate the passage of time, I’ve been …
EAA Corsair is Korean Vet Flown by Medal of Honor Recipient
May 2, 2022

EAA Corsair is Korean Vet Flown by Medal of Honor Recipient

Few veterans that fought in World War II are still with us today, and that’s as true for aircraft as well as the pilots who flew them. It is especially true for the veterans who were recalled for Korea, America’s forgotten war, which con…
Pandemic Aviation Records
April 4, 2022

Pandemic Aviation Records

The pandemic has reordered the routines of life in many ways, and that includes the almost annual National Aeronautic Association announcement of the previous year’s aviation records. But Covid-19 restrictions waylaid the submission of aviatio…
Review: Eric Brown’s Wings on My Sleeve, the Life of Flying’s Forrest Gump
March 7, 2022

Review: Eric Brown’s Wings on My Sleeve, the Life of Flying’s Forrest Gump

Like many history-obsessed aviation geeks, I had a passing knowledge of Captain Eric “Winkle” Brown defined by the most common bullet points that most often summarized his life. He was (he passed in 2016 at age 97) a Royal Navy aviator a…
Open Cockpits, Stepping into History at the Air Zoo
Dec. 27, 2021

Open Cockpits, Stepping into History at the Air Zoo

Admiring historic airplanes from a museum floor is a big-picture perspective of their contributions, whatever they may be, to aviation. Regardless the aeronautical era or the scope of the story, the viewer’s mind readily puts the winged artifa…
Dauntless Dedication to Air Zoo Aircraft Reincarnation
Dec. 13, 2021

Dauntless Dedication to Air Zoo Aircraft Reincarnation

Air Zoo Aerospace & Science Experience CEO Troy Thrash said the Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless on display in the World War II exhibit was the team’s first Lake Michigan restoration project. The eight-year effort took place years ago in a building…
Promote Aviation With Inclusive Participation
Sept. 6, 2021

Promote Aviation With Inclusive Participation

Over the decades, the Young Eagles program has given millions of youngsters what, in many cases, were their inaugural flights in an aircraft smaller than a transport category airliner. This includes my kids and my grandchildren, which gives you an i…
Day Zero: Resetting an AirVenture Attitude
July 25, 2021

Day Zero: Resetting an AirVenture Attitude

After we all took a year off in 2020, I hit the road this morning for Wittman Regional Airport with a tick of trepidation nibbling at my soul. It’s Zero Day, the Sunday before the show starts and all the exhibitors are scurrying about trying t…
Review: Devotion, a Unique Look at the Korean War
March 8, 2021

Review: Devotion, a Unique Look at the Korean War

Tipped off by the movie being made about its story of Jesse Brown and Medal of Honor recipient Tom Hudner (see “Devotion: Bearcats, Corsairs, and Real Moviemaking Oh My!“), I found the book in our local library system. In Devotion: An Ep…
Devotion: Bearcats, Corsairs, & Real Moviemaking Oh My!
Feb. 22, 2021

Devotion: Bearcats, Corsairs, & Real Moviemaking Oh My!

Nothing ruins the enjoyment of a good aviation film more thoroughly than computer-generated images. Real moviemaking, filming real airplanes is what makes movies like “12 O’Clock High” and “Top Gun” so memorable. That&#…
Aviation Photographers, Are You a Hoarder or Archivist?
Jan. 25, 2021

Aviation Photographers, Are You a Hoarder or Archivist?

Photography is an activity pursued by many interested in aviation. For photographers who started before the digital age, storing slides, negatives, and prints was not only an out of space problem but also spacious signal that might suggest a hoardin…