General Posts

When you live in Wisconsin, where this October day never really dawned under thick ominous clouds and the temperature is struggling to reach the 40s, an e-mail about flying to the Bahamas really gets a pilot’s attention. And by doing so, earni…

Those with a proclivity for cynicism might judge this headline an oxymoron equal to military intelligence. But before you snigger and stop reading, consider this:  under its Center of Excellence banner, the FAA has selected a team of universities wi…

Working my way around Lake Michigan last week, I passed a small airport in Northport. This village of 526 people is at ring-fingertip of lower Michigan’s left-handed mitten. The fieldstone terminal with a conical roof in bumble-bee colors on i…

Certainly more details about its new Center to Advance the Pilot Community will be broadcast during October’s AOPA Aviation Summit in Palm Springs, but that doesn’t satisfy my need to know now. Ah, curiosity is an impatient task master, …

Here in Wisconsin, a swing state, we have been incessantly pummeled by political ads of both parties. This onslaught has been painfully punctuated almost daily by political surveys whose questions do little more than support the delusions of the per…

For the 34th year, the FAA has reached out to aircraft owners and Part 135 operators to take the pulse of general aviation. What’s sad is that over the years, many of my friends lucky enough to own an airplane rarely took the time to complete …

Thanks to my comrades at The Airplane Geeks Show for staying way ahead of me and posting my annual Labor Day message. In case you don’t listen to our show — impossible as that might be — do give this link a quick click. Promise I d…

Reading Neil Armstrong’s obit in the New York Times led to an unexpected epiphany: As the inaugural pioneers, the collective public faces of singular accomplishments achieved during the first century of powered flight pass, what events of equi…

Less than a decade ago, when the symptom’s of aviation’s decline were firmly manifested, a number of aviation’s alphabet organizations focused mostly on increasing their slice of a shrinking pie. With the number of active pilots an…

At every turn, it seemed that everyone at EAA AirVenture 2012 had an Apple iPad, except me and one or two others. Aviation apps were hot items this year, and several of them would make effective, essential tools for pilots in training.First up is J…

With its huge, preselected aviation audience, EAA AirVenture is the ultimate dog-and-pony stage on which many companies debut new hardware and software. Significant this year are new airplanes that offer a good balance between price and performance,…

Since I started attending EAA AirVenture professionally, as an exhibitor in 1989, and then an employee, and now as a journalist, my greatest joy is covering the site from the North 40 to ultralights, and just letting what’s new rise up and gra…

Bird strikes have been one of my passing interests ever since I watched the head-on confrontation between a seagull and A landing A-6 during a wheels’ watch at NAS Alameda in the early 1970s. (The seagull lost, by the way.) Somewhere over the …

This YouTube video is but one half of Georgia’s airport promotion.Seeking escape from pervasive bad-new morosity I quickly discovered some really good and uplifting aviation activity in Georgia, which recently launched a two-part promotion…

In her opening statement at the June 19 convocation addressing General Aviation Safety—Climbing to the Next Level, NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said “in spite of improvements to the commercial and corporate aviation safety records, the GA acc…

With  no demands or duties, I retired to the deck on Father’s Day to reflect on my life’s journey, to appreciate the good times and bad that are its waypoints. A caressing breeze ebbed and flowed from the west like wind waves on the sky&…

The Icon A5’s spin resistance show & tellWhen I hit the play button on this video, I was ready to pounce on every syllable of marketing hyperbole. Instead of half-told truths, I got a concise, comprehensive show & tell on what make…

Taking “A fresh look at the many roles General Aviation Airport play in the National Air Transportation System,” the FAA recently released the 34-page report of its in-depth, 18-month study of roughly 3,000 airports, General Aviation Air…

Evelyn Bryan Johnson died May 10, 2012 in her 102nd year. She was a flight instructor. She stopped counting the number of people she’d taught to fly when the number passed 3,000. A designated pilot examiner since 1952, when I met her in 1997 a…

Last week, the middle school where I am a substitute teacher held its annual career and hobby day, where students sign up for presentations  that interest them. I was on duty as a student wrangler, not a speaker, and it was happenstance that I ended…

For decades, individuals and organizations have focused attention and effort on rebuilding the pilot population. But for the first time in memory, AOPA is drawing attention to—and doing something about it with its Keep ’em Flying Challenge—an …

The PAL-V, a hot-rod trike with a fold away gyrocopter rotor and prop.The Terrafugia Transition’s appearance at the New York auto show made the news recently. Flying cars have been an interesting engineering exercise since the late 1940s, …

Phatic speech is what we say without thinking to start a conversation. “What’s up?” are the ones I hear most, and for the past 30-some years my answer has been the same: “Anything above eye level—it’s a relative term.&#…

Last weekend the New York Times published an enlightening piece—63 Years Flying, From Glamour to Days of Gray—about Ron Akana, United Airline Flight Attendant Seniority Number 1. You read that right, he’s been flying for 63 years. Hawaiian bor…