Lifestyle Posts

Have you or someone you know ever considered becoming an air traffic controller for the FAA? I spent nearly 10 years of my aviation career working for the agency, and I loved the work. Coincidentally, the FAA just announced its latest recruiting dri…

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 devolve …

I have many fond and a few not-so-fond memories of flying business jets in the corporate world. But then, everyone needs to begin somewhere. Rob Mark A crusty old chief pilot once told me early in my jet flying career that, at times, I seemed a bi…

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-…

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 Fond du Lac an…

General Aviation Thrives on Kettle Moraine Grass Situated along the Scuppermong River in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, the Village of Palmyra is, says the welcoming sign across the street from the Palmyra Municipal Airport (88C), “The Heart of the Ke…

Discovering the Logbooks of a Life Rarely Discussed Covid sequestration is, it turns out, an inescapable cloister (especially now, with Wisconsin’s record-setting infections), perfect for undertaking long put off tasks you’ve always meant to get to …

With thunderstorms lined in assaulting waves on radar and pathfinding drops splattering themselves against my office window, changing my Saturday morning plans for a two-wheel ride to Rio, Wisconsin, seemed prudent. Remembering that the EAA Aviation…

S.M. Spangler Humans hate uncertainty, so after reading EAA’s early morning email on May 1 that confirmed what many expected, uncounted thousands of aviation-oriented minds posed, in one form or another, an unsettling question, “With no AirVenture, …

Seeking refuge from the gloomy, overcast skies that are growing darker as a winter storm crawls across Wisconsin, I turned to my bookshelves in the hope that the title of a tome once read would catch my eye and lift my spirits. As my eyes slid acros…

Dan Webb entertains Mr. Simba at                                             Camp Jetwhine. I started Jetwhine 13 years ago amidst breaking news of an Embraer Legacy biz jet having collided in midair with GOL airlines Boeing 737 over the…

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 separated the red…