General Posts

Will Only the Boutique Airframers Survive?
Nov. 9, 2008

Will Only the Boutique Airframers Survive?

Not a day goes by, it seems, when the aviation e-news organizations don’t report that another general aviation airframe manufacturer has reduced its work force and cut or ceased production to get through the globally self-inflicted economic me…
ACA Fights Financial Fires With Aqua-Bama
Nov. 3, 2008

ACA Fights Financial Fires With Aqua-Bama

Airframe manufacturers are dealing with the financial fires spawned by the global economic meltdown in many ways, including reorganization, furloughs, and layoffs. American Champion Aircraft is pursuing a different tact, introducing a new airplane…
Berlin Tempelhof Airport vs. Chicago’s Meigs Field
Oct. 31, 2008

Berlin Tempelhof Airport vs. Chicago’s Meigs Field

Airports come and go these days, but some closings become more personal than others. Living in Chicago, we had our own sad, yes even depressing moments when Mayor Daley hacked Meigs Field to death just to prove who was really in charge. Personally, …
Under Construction: EAA AirVenture Grounds
Oct. 27, 2008

Under Construction: EAA AirVenture Grounds

After the last plane took off for home in August, EAA announced it was starting work on a 10-year plan to improve its AirVenture grounds on Wittman Regional Airport. The news release spoke about moving the main gate, new thoroughfares, and improved …
ASF Online Courses: Keeping Your Head in the Game
Oct. 19, 2008

ASF Online Courses: Keeping Your Head in the Game

When the urge to fly strikes me, but inadequate weather or funds make the satisfaction of this desire impractical, I often turn to the AOPA Air Safety Foundation Interactive Safety Courses. Spending an hour online isn’t the same as one in the…
Getting Reacquainted With NASA Callback
Oct. 13, 2008

Getting Reacquainted With NASA Callback

Cleaning out an old flight bag, in a long unvisited pocket I found a NASA form that must be more than a decade old. I was flying more than I do now, and I always carried the form in case I needed to submit the details of some inadvertent stupid pil…
LSA Surpasses Expectations at Oshkosh FBO
Oct. 8, 2008

LSA Surpasses Expectations at Oshkosh FBO

In no uncertain terms, Toby Kamark and Jeff Gentz see light-sport aircraft as the future of general aviation. It’s time for a new generation to succeed the old, and this change is happening now, they said. Sport pilot is the key to getting p…
Rare Fw-190 Part Found in Rural Kansas
Sept. 29, 2008

Rare Fw-190 Part Found in Rural Kansas

When I traveled recently to rural eastern Kansas to write and shoot a profile for Aviation for Women, the magazine of Women In Aviation International, holding the last surviving part of a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 was the last thing I expected to do. But h…
Simple Airplanes + Modern Construction = Full-Scale Affordable Flight
Sept. 23, 2008

Simple Airplanes + Modern Construction = Full-Scale Affordable Flight

Like most pilots, I dreamed of one day owning an airplane. With the cost of groceries and gas, one son in college and his brother  starting next year, I’d put the dream to bed. Given all the costs, I couldn’t justify it to myself, b…
Proposed Policy Doesn’t Solve Homebuilt Problem
Sept. 15, 2008

Proposed Policy Doesn’t Solve Homebuilt Problem

If my homebuilding buddies are a typical sample of the amateur-built airplane community, there’s a lot of confusion about what led to the new policy the FAA has proposed. (See Homebuilt Aircraft: How Much is More than Half?) My friends are so…
Pilots Maintain Grassroots Aviation Growth at Liberty Landing Airport
Sept. 10, 2008

Pilots Maintain Grassroots Aviation Growth at Liberty Landing Airport

To most pilots who fly over it, Liberty Landing Airport (4MO4) isn’t anything special. On the sectional chart it’s just another private airport, an empty circle around an R that stands for restricted about 20 nm east, southeast of Kansas…
Going My Way: Jeppesen’s VFR+GPS Charts
Sept. 2, 2008

Going My Way: Jeppesen’s VFR+GPS Charts

It’s always bugged me that I need two sectional charts–Green Bay and Chicago–to get from my home in OSH to my family growing-up grounds west of the commercial Class B airspace plug stuck in the ground at ORD.It’s more than …
New FAA Wings Program Stresses Proficiency, Not Award
Aug. 25, 2008

New FAA Wings Program Stresses Proficiency, Not Award

During the late 1990s I participated in the FAA Pilot Proficiency Award Program. Each year, in return for attending one safety seminar and logging three hours with an instructor (one each for airwork, patternwork, and hoodwork) I met the biennial fl…
Fun Flyer Lands Role in new Amelia Earhart Film
Aug. 13, 2008

Fun Flyer Lands Role in new Amelia Earhart Film

If time is short, never ask Dick and Sharon Starks what they’ve been up to lately. Both pilots, these retired schoolteachers have a full flying life that any pilot would envy.  Anxious to see Sharon’s new airplane, a Morane Model L para…
Cole & Kittinger: Hearing History First Hand
Aug. 2, 2008

Cole & Kittinger: Hearing History First Hand

It seems fitting that my fourth decade of EAA AirVenture attendance starts like the first, meeting those who made the history I read about as a kid.On my first trip to Oshkosh in 1978 I met Pappy Boyington and George Gay (see EAA AirVenture Forums…
Ken Scott: Multitasking at Van’s Aircraft
Aug. 1, 2008

Ken Scott: Multitasking at Van’s Aircraft

From AirVenture 2008 – Van’s Aircraft is a small company that’s put a big smile on faces who’ve taken to the sky in the company’s line of RVs. The handful of employees also wear big smiles, even after standing in the ho…
Backyard Flyer Fits Pilots of All Sizes
July 31, 2008

Backyard Flyer Fits Pilots of All Sizes

From AirVenture 2008 – As promised in a recent post (Backyard Flying: Fun & Cheap), I ambled down to the lightplane area at the south end of the EAA AirVenture site to try on Valley Engineering’s Backyard Flyer. It fit!To most peop…
EAA AirVenture Forums is Where Flying Friendships Form
July 24, 2008

EAA AirVenture Forums is Where Flying Friendships Form

Six months out of the Navy I attended my first trip to Oshkosh in 1978. I went for the airplanes. Not one of them now stands out in memory. Not so with the people I met. Sitting in side-by-side booths in the old exhibit shed were Pappy Boyington of…
Make FAAST Your FAA Connection
July 17, 2008

Make FAAST Your FAA Connection

Am I the last airman in America to totally ignore the free and invaluable gift that is FAAST, the FAA Safety Team at www.FAASafety.gov? Sometime during the past two years I gave the FAA my email address. When and how doesn’t matter. WhatR…
Fuel Prices & Aviation Safety: Are They Related?
July 10, 2008

Fuel Prices & Aviation Safety: Are They Related?

Talking to friends, flight schools, and FBOs it is clear that I’m not the only one who isn’t flying as much as I used to. With avgas going for roughly $6 a gallon or more, depending where you live, direct operating costs are climbing fa…
Pilots Flock to Stick & Rudder Safety Clinic
July 3, 2008

Pilots Flock to Stick & Rudder Safety Clinic

It’s been awhile since I’ve attended an FAA safety seminar. With good intentions I read all e-mail invitations FAASafety.gov sends, but other weekend responsibilities too often take precedence. A tailwheel clinic, on the other hand, is m…
Icon Aircraft Preaches to the Congregation (Finally!)
June 26, 2008

Icon Aircraft Preaches to the Congregation (Finally!)

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…
Aerotrekking Back to Coffin Corner
June 12, 2008

Aerotrekking Back to Coffin Corner

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…
Cessna Pilot Centers May be GA’s Last Hope for Reversing Pilot Population Decline
May 22, 2008

Cessna Pilot Centers May be GA’s Last Hope for Reversing Pilot Population Decline

Reversing the decline of the pilot population “is the most important thing we are addressing,” says Cessna Pilot Center Manager Julie Boatman. “We have several things in development that I’m not quite ready to talk about ye…