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 […]
Opinion
Jenny a century later
The World War I Curtiss Jenny trainer evolved from less-than-optimal JN-1 and JN-2 models of 1915 to the definitive JN-4D that found its stride 100 years ago. In the spirit of centennial commemorations, a look back at the Jenny is in order. The earliest Jennies employed control wheels. By the advent of the JN-4D, a more traditional […]
Flying the SeaMax
In summary, I’d call SeaMax a “performance LSA seaplane,” peppy and demanding a bit more pilot attention, but it gets up and goes.
Control is an illusion, except when it’s not
I find it fascinating to watch people attempt to control what is often beyond control. If only a non-profit, non-government entity was in control of air traffic, the ills of airline travel would magically disappear. Or so Congress — and the airlines – would like us to believe. As if… According to the Bureau of Transportation […]
The other call of the wild
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 […]
Unstable approaches
Three and a half years into writing this column, I finally found where all the general aviation reports to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System have been hiding. Usually, when I query the ASRS database, I get at least six reports from airline pilots for every one report submitted by a GA pilot. Not true for the […]
Breaking in the engine on an RV-6
Q: Hello, Paul. I live in South Africa, Johannesburg. I love reading your articles on engines. You have wise words. Thank you. I have an RV-6 built by myself and my brother-in-law. We fitted a Lycoming O-320-B2C that got overhauled after 560 hours by Alton Engineering. I believe you will be able to help me with […]
The caretaker’s task
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 […]
Not quite deja vu
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 […]