The Buzz Posts

Pardon our tardiness delivering this week’s episode, but we wanted to wait for our new logo to show up. Many thanks to @runwaygirl’s sister Anne Kirby and The Sweet Core crew for launching us into the 21st Century.On to the content. Thi…

While it may seem to many of you as if the Malaysian Airlines 370 story has been going on forever, we’re really only into the opening scenes of this investigation. Remember it took two years to recover the data recorders from Air France 447.L…

The past month has been one of amazement for most of us in the aviation industry as millions of people around the world try and figure out what happened to Malaysian Airlines flight 370.CNN decided to go 24/7 with MH370 coverage, while I was happy …

 It’s time to get our listeners caught up on The Aviation Minute.Seems that working the kinks out of our new podcast turned out to be a bit more time consuming than I’d at first thought. Now that the iTunes folks tell us The Avi…

James Bond creator Ian FlemingIan Flemming and Tom Clancy, both master writers of suspense and political intrigue — and their alter egos James Bond and Jack Ryan respectively — are probably looking down from heaven in awe at the story c…

I know the TSA costs us billions every year, but for once, I think people need to appreciate them for the good things those folks do … especially in light of the possibilities that hijackers may have taken out Malaysian 370 last week.Rob Mark…

Thanks to all of you for the great comments about The Aviation Minute‘s first episode. You’ll find episode 2 below, which actually evolved from comments related to the first show about the regional airline pilot shortage. Show Updates: …

When I created Jetwhine wayyyyy back in 2006, the tagline was pretty simple … “aviation buzz and bold opinion.”Since then, some 650 stories of fact and aviation opinion have appeared on these pages. Some of them have have driven r…

Taking a Bite Out of Those GA Accident StatisticsWhenever a flight instructor finishes up a training session with a GApilot — new or old — they always hope that pilot really understood the lesson before they head out on their own. An in…

Regular Jetwhine readers might just remember a number of lively debates on this blog about what happened to Air France 447 over the South Atlantic in June 2009. A few of those conversations reached heated proportions too, with opinions … some …

Guns and airports don’t mix well … unless those weapons are being carried by law enforcement officers.Period.As the aviation industry evolves from an era of proactive problem solving to a search for more predictive solutions based on t…

The pilots of Asiana Airlines 214, a Boeing 777 that crashed at San Francisco International Airport in July, told investigators the auto-throttle system on their aircraft malfunctioned. They swear it was properly set prior to beginning their approac…

Getting old isn’t really so bad, is it?Sure a few more lines and sags stare back at you every morning in the mirror, but the upside to aging is wisdom.Jetwhine’s 7th birthday is just around the corner and I like to think Scott Spangler…

“Airlines lose bags sometimes. Get over it, ” a guy told me.Yeah … right.That nice warm fuzzy reality check didn’t work for me a few months ago when Southwest Airlines lost my daughter’s bag between MDW & LAX.I&#…

Having been deeply involved with two major unions in my life … the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association (PATCO) and finally for a short while, the National Air Traffic Controllers Associatio…

Two Turkish airline pilots have gone missing. The aircraft they flew to Beirut on August 9 is just fine, as is their cabin crew, but these two men simply vanished into thin air … and almost no one is talking about them.Captain Murat Akpınar …

When people call me a “Geek” these days, I accept it as a term of endearment, especially with the advent of social media. In fact, that’s why our radio show’s called The Airplane Geeks. It’s actually pretty cool to be a…

Every aviation blogger I’ve ever met is certain they possess a magic grasp on their own little corner of the industry, which is of course why we all do what we do.Some bloggers are just better writers than others, or better marketers of their…

I was just watching the animation of an Cirrus SR-22 accident caused by poor pilot judgment near Boynton Beach, Fla. in November 2011. The crash claimed the lives of two pilots. “More money than sense,” was all I could think to say after…

Just about the time you thought you’d have a Saturday free to kick back and goof off comes word that The Airplane Geeks will again be a part of the Air & Space Museum’s Become a Pilot Day on June 15th. Now of course if you live outsi…

After we recorded this week’s episode of the Airplane Geeks Show, I decided to turn over a new leaf and stop whining about people like the new DOT Secretary. To be honest, I had a little motivational help from our guest Jason Paur (@jasonpaur)…

Remember when we called those two Northwest Airlines pilots who missed Minneapolis a few years back unprofessional because they were playing on their laptops instead of flying? We poked fun at them of course and well, no one was hurt … except …

Looking back on the decade of my life I spent working at FAA I remember one thing for certain. When someone at the agency told me “No,” the reasons were seldom clear.“No,” might have meant something as simple as “No,&#…

Every journalist who has writtten in the past few years about the 2009 Air France accident has eventually ended up asking the same question … why did an experienced crew react to the weather the way they did, as well as to the failure of some…