General Aviation News

Hardware is not the issue

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Like pretty much everyone else involved in aviation, I frequently engage with people who say things like, “Oh, I could never fly an airplane. They’re too dangerous.”

These same people limit the scope of their lives with similar comments about motorcycles and other pieces of hardware that are widely perceived as too dangerous for the average person.

In truth, the hardware that fills our lives is not the problem. Our greatest threat, our most profound weakness, the thing that will do us the most damage is something we carry around with us all the time. Between our ears. It’s our thoughts. [Read more…]

Opportunity is knocking…hard

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It’s a well-worn bromide of our society: “Children are our future.” Yet, in real life we tend not to conduct ourselves as if we believe that to be true.

Another more specifically instructive aphorism suggests, “When opportunity knocks…open the door.”

Let’s consider that second quote for a moment.

Two weeks from this moment, opportunity will be knocking in a big way. [Read more…]

R.E.S.P.O.N.S.I.B.I.L.I.T.Y.

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Not long ago, I did something stupid in an airplane. Gulp.

The scenario looked like this: I departed a non-towered airport that lies under Class B airspace. As my flight home was a short one, I didn’t use Flight Following, as I normally would. Instead I simply took off, climbed to 2,000 feet, and settled in for a half hour of casual cruising over Floridan’s flat, wild countryside. And that’s where the trouble started. [Read more…]

The other call of the wild

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When I’m in my own home town, which is a good portion of the time, I walk a lot. It’s an old habit, one I adopted as a public school student.

My assigned school bus stop was two miles from my parent’s house. The bus stop was on a hard road, but our home sat very near the end of a twisty, rutted, dirt path that alternated between states of dusty, muddy, or ice covered. It very much resembled the old adage about long walks except that it was only uphill one way.

My siblings and I still refer to our parent’s house as “The Mountain.” [Read more…]

The caretaker’s task

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Of all the mass produced airplanes ever to come off an assembly line, anywhere in the world, there may be no more iconic a flying machine than the humble Piper J3 Cub.

First built in 1937, production of the Cub lasted a mere 10 years. By the time the Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, production line closed down in 1947, nearly 20,000 airframes had left the factory.

Aviation had gone from being perceived as a dangerous endeavor practiced by thrill-seekers and fools to an industry well on its way to changing the way the people of the world lived, worked, and interacted. [Read more…]

Not quite deja vu

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Although I am a huge and unrepentant advocate for general aviation, my first exposure to flight involved a big aluminum tube powered by four round engines.

Eastern Airlines was the carrier. Bradley Field in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, was the departure point. Gainesville, Florida, was the destination, with a change of airplanes in Atlanta. I was 4 years old, traveling in the company of my older, wiser, more responsible brother. He was 5. [Read more…]

From here to there and back again

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My friend Eirlys is a youthful ball of fire. She’s just 18 years old. As of last week she’s now an official high school graduate, with a diploma to prove it. If all goes well, and weather permitting, she’ll be a brand new private pilot by the end of next week.

She’s really something. [Read more…]

If at first you don’t succeed…

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In 1992 I stumbled across the first airplane I ever seriously considered buying. I was a hard-working CFI back then. My income wasn’t going to set the world on fire, but maybe, just maybe I could find a way to buy the classic T-craft with the faded “For Sale” sign behind its windshield.

Even though it had been sitting outside for months and was in need of some serious TLC, I wanted it. [Read more…]

Donald Shimoda is my co-pilot

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In the mid-1980s I was a professional musician. I lived in in the Greenwich Village section of New York City with my best friend and musical collaborator, Michael Mazzarella. Our apartment sat on Bleecker Street, just around the corner from MacDougal.

We walked on sidewalks Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and Paul Simon had walked. We drank beer and played and socialized in bars and clubs where our heros had drunk beer and played and socialized years before.

Mine was a good life.

A career in aviation wasn’t available to me. At least that’s what I’d been led to believe. [Read more…]

Pilot, humble thyself

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As you might imagine of a guy who writes for an aviation publication with the reputation enjoyed by General Aviation News, I’ve been flying for quite a while. You might also get the impression I pretty much know what I’m doing.

That’s not necessarily true. [Read more…]