A new job always comes with a learning curve. You need to learn procedures and ways of doing business, as well as determining the needs of your clients. The clients, meanwhile, hopefully will be patient with you. Without proper communication, things can get muddled and tensions rise. This is particularly true of airport management. At […]
Jiminy Cricket!
The fuselage is together, the panel in place, the primer on the airframe. Now comes the daunting task of choosing the final color for that airplane you built yourself. Sometimes, the airplane will tell you what color to paint it, notes Mark Swalley of Gig Harbor, Wash. Swalley has a green Zenith CH 701 SP […]
Help design the C4
How would you like to help a popular Light-Sport Aircraft manufacturer design its first four-place aircraft? If the answer is yes, Flight Design wants to hear from you. During Aero Friedrichshafen in April, Flight Design unveiled plans to build its first four-place airplane. By July at AirVenture the company had a mock-up of the new […]
Angels and aviation
Angel Flight, the not-for-profit organization that arranges free air transportation for those in need of medical care, relies on volunteer pilots to make the program work, but as aviation maintenance students at Clover Park Technical College near Tacoma, Wash., recently learned, you don’t necessarily need to have your wings to help the cause. In February […]
Fulfilling dreams with Able Flight
Teaching someone to fly is always a challenge. Now imagine that the person you are teaching is disabled. It happens every day, thanks to Able Flight, a non-profit organization founded in 2006 by Charles Stites, a pilot who believes that the life-changing experience of learning to fly is best shared, which is why he created […]
Flying the Sky Arrow with hand controls
Many years ago, when I was working as a television news reporter, I spent a day in a wheelchair so that I could get an idea of what it was like to be disabled for a story on the American With Disabilities Act. I remember how challenging it was to use a water fountain, get […]
Tom Norton, former General Aviation News editor, dies at 77
It is with great sadness that I report that Captain Thomas French Norton, former senior editor of General Aviation News, died Dec. 2, of complications following heart surgery. He was 77. Tom leaves behind his wife of 15 years, Anna, and two grown daughters, Heather and Alexandra. Tom was a devoted family man and active […]
Supermarine’s Spitfire
The Spitfire is perhaps the most recognizable English airplane from World War II. The elliptical wings, tapered nose and tailwheel profile combine to make it one of the sleekest and sexiest designs in the sky. For most pilots, owning an airworthy Spitfire is financially out of reach. That is, unless you opt for building a […]
Amelia’s Wheels
Sam Lyon’s latest, “Amelia’s Wheels,” was unveiled at this summer’s AirVenture. “This is really the first woman I have used as subject matter in a painting,” Lyons said with a smile. In fact, it was his wife, Mindy, who suggested Sam undertake a painting that celebrated women in aviation. Sam’s initial thought was to work […]