The Buzz Posts

One of Jetwhine’s earliest supporters – Matt Thurber – sent us this piece, one that I’m happy to publish. Matt is an old friend and a senior editor at Aviation International News, where I’m also a long-time contributor…

On June 4 the Des Moines Register published an article whose headline said “Tiny Iowa Airports Take Off With Millions in FAA Grants.” To be honest, it’s what you’d expect from a newspaper and reporter whose aviation experienc…

I had the good fortune recently to be invited to ferry a Dassault Falcon 2000LX back to the U.S. – Teterboro in fact – from the factory in Bordeaux France. It was my first Atlantic crossing and certainly gave me new respect for the work …

For as long as I can remember, Southwest Airlines, now the largest U.S. domestic airline, created in the 1970s by Herb Kelleher and Rollin King, has been the low-cost airline others most want to emulate. The need to copy isn’t just about mone…

I was privileged to have been invited to fly the Airbus A380 in Toulouse last week. I think it took about 4 seconds for me to decide when I was asked if I wanted the job of flying, evaluating and then writing up my findings on a few new pieces of on…

Years ago in another life, I was a VFR tower controller at a number of then really busy airports, Chicago Palwaukee (now Chicago Executive), Chicago DuPage, Chicago Meigs and Miami Opa-Locka. As a pilot and a newly minted flight instructor, I alw…

At Kent State University in Ohio, students hoping for a career in two failing industries–aviation and publishing–have joined forces to improve the future of both by starting an online aviation magazine. Its tag line, “Grass Roots. …

After reading reports of faltering flight schools, I wandered over to the Fox Valley Technical College’s aviation campus on the Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to see how things were going in flyover country. Not so bad, it see…

It gives me great pleasure to announce Jetwhine’s latest collaboration with Shashank Nigam’s SimpliFlying. Shashank is a Boston and Singapore-based self-professed airline geek who loves marketing. Shashank creates brand initiatives with…

Every year about this time aviation writers around the globe start getting a little goose bumpy wondering if they made the cut. Making the cut means you’ve been nominated by the World Leadership Forum for the Aerospace Journalist of the Year …

Here’s a new installment of our sporadic Fun Friday adventures. From a couple of Jetwhine readers I now share a couple of very funny videos. The first, a new piece of Air New Zealand branding in a way only the folks next to the folks down unde…

The NTSB meets this week to ask the tough questions about February’s Dash 8 crash in Buffalo. They’ll be looking at icing effects on aircraft performance, cold weather operations, sterile cockpit rules, crew experience, fatigue manageme…

New Yorkers often stand as a national litmus test of just how tough Americans can be in a crisis. The weeks and months after 9/11 showed us that even they have their limits although most found a place somewhere to bury those ugly days.In just a few…

The world watched in awe a few months back as Capt. Sullenberger put a US Airways A320 just where he wanted it – well so to speak – on the Hudson River, close by to a half dozen small boats that allowed for the quick rescue of all aboard…

Most airline passengers understand that pilots are required to qualify initially through FAA guidelines, are also required to regularly undergo a physical exam just to make sure some small problem doesn’t lead to incapacitation aboard a flight…

For writers, any kind of writers, the big league means writing books. My first foray came 20 years ago when Tab Books – eventually absorbed into the McGraw Hill network – gave me a chance to write about something I held near and dear to…

A recent New York Times’s article, “Drones Are Weapons of Choice in Fighting Qaeda, ” added to the mounting evidence that Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are changing the face of military aviation. This is especially true in the U.S. Air …

Measuring the health of U.S. flight schools is easy. Grab the latest General Aviation Manufacturers Association Statistical Databook and see how many student pilot certificates the FAA issued last year. The most recent number is for for 2007: 66,79…

In the spirit of my last post, Share Thumbs-Up Moments With Everyone, I just discovered a new air taxi company, ImagineAir, founded by two flight instructors who met at Georgia Tech. Based in Lawrenceville, just outside of Atlanta, ImagineAir made i…

FAA held a customer service seminar last week in Chicago. I always chuckle a bit when someone combines the FAA acronym with anything that even sounds like customer service. Sorry PT & DB. But then, today’s my birthday so I suppose most rea…

If you haven’t heard, the Internet and blogs like JetWhine are killing print journalism. Slowly, community journalists, everyday people with an interest in their community, are becoming our primary source of news. If you doubt this, watch TV …

Maybe I haven’t had enough coffee this morning, but I’m not sure how to take an article in the current issue of Wired, “Air Repair: Key to Eliminating U.S. Flight Delays? Redesign the Sky Over New York City.” It reminds me o…

I don’t know what makes me more angry, the story in the Wall Street Journal that claims investigators are pointing the finger of blame at the pilots of the Dash 8 Q400 in the Buffalo crash a few weeks ago, or that from a pilot-training perspec…

A confirmed rotorhead, I recently invested some unexpected free time looking into the NTSB’s public hearing on Safety of Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) Operations. I didn’t have the time to watch four days of video availabl…