Children from Suntree Petite Academy in Melbourne, Fla., got an insiders’ view of Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville earlier this month. Approximately 25 students ranging in age from 4 to 12 participated in the field trip. The visit gave the children the opportunity to learn how airports operate and how airplanes work. A highlight […]
News
Cubs to gather at Flabob
Flabob Airport in Riverside, Calif., will be the scene for what is predicted to be the largest Gathering of Cubs in the west this summer. The event, slated for Saturday, Aug. 19, is expected to draw nearly 100 J-3, J-4 and J-5 Cubs to the one-day fly-in. The gathering is open to everyone and, except […]
FAA proposes mandatory ADIZ course
Earlier this month, the FAA released a notice of proposed rule making that would require additional training for any pilot who flies VFR within 100 nm of the nation’s capitol (See Capital Comments, page 7, for more information). Pilots can check out the course right now at FAASafety.gov. Type ADIZ course into the search box […]
BD-5 Jet crashes near Ocean City, Maryland
A highly experienced 61-year-old pilot was killed June 27 when the BD-5J he was flying for classified military radar tests crashed and burned about 1,000 feet west of Ocean City Municipal Airport (OXB) in Maryland. The little jet has been mimicking cruise missiles for radar calibrations for about five years, often based at Easton, Maryland, […]
Have you heard the one about the wooden airport?
One of the more enduring legends from World War II is the one about the phony wooden airfield constructed as a decoy. According to the legend, the Germans in occupied Holland built the airfield. Detail was meticulous, down to wooden hangars, oil tanks, trucks and faux aircraft. However, the Germans took so long in building […]
The Ultimate Flight Lesson
What do you get when you take a flight instructor and student, hand them the keys to a new plane that must get to its buyer, and then put an ocean between them and their destination? The North Atlantic Challenge. Benjamin Riecken, who teaches flying at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and Jean Olivier Mbog, a senior […]
Flapper makes aviation history
Dr. James DeLaurier, an aeronautical engineer and professor emeritus at Canada’s University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, fulfilled a lifelong dream July 9. He saw his manned, jet-powered, flapping-wing airplane – a full-scale ornithopter – actually fly. It was the culmination of a quest that he had pursued for more than 30 years. The […]
A different kind of flying
What is Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s name doing on a dragster? The jet-powered vehicle, which races at National Hot Rod Association events around the country, accelerates from zero to 60 mph in less than a second and reaches a top speed of 270 mph. So it’s no wonder it attracts attention wherever it goes, whether it’s […]
An unwelcome passenger
“No matter what happens fly the airplane.” Pilot Monty Coles remembered that nugget of advice given to him by his flight instructor some 25 years ago when he discovered he had an uninvited passenger in the form of a 4-1/2-foot snake aboard his plane during a recent flight over the Ohio and West Virginia border. […]