“It was a close call,” wrote the captain in her report to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System. “If we had not realized what was happening and acted on it, all the occupants of the aircraft would have likely lost consciousness and suffocated.” What catastrophic event caused one airline captain to have a near-death experience on […]
Opinion
Full Stop: An attitude check
When I was a kid, I had big dreams. Really big dreams. If you’re the kind of person who regularly reads General Aviation News, you probably did too. For years I thought I might play in the NFL. That was until I played freshman football in high school. At a diminutive 4’ 11” and well […]
What engine is best for my Long-EZ?
As far as which engine is the most reliable high horsepower Lycoming engine for your plane, it’s a little difficult to name just one.
10,000 hours is much more than a lot of hours
Rich Stowell recently logged his “10,000th hour of total flight time.” For those who haven’t heard of Rich, he’s a flight instructor from Cascade, Idaho. He’s written a trio of books focused on stall/spin awareness and emergency maneuver training. I found out about Rich’s milestone via Facebook. He wrote it took “almost 34 years to the […]
Flying Clubs and FBOs: A match made in heaven
Not long ago Hurricane Hermine blew through Florida. This was a Category 1 hurricane. A relative pip-squeak on the spectrum of deadly storms. Relative in that it did result in a fatality, but for most of those affected it caused little more than an occasional tree blocking a road, stray limbs littering the yard, and […]
First-Timers
By JEB BURNSIDE. If you’re lucky, you may get a chance to give someone their first airplane ride. In fact, flying passengers can be one of the real highlights of becoming a pilot. (And I’m thinking of pure passengers, the kind who have no clue how to do what you’re doing in the cockpit. Pilot-rated […]
Rumors
By DEAN BILLING. There is a classic quote: “Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated.” Although this blog is weeks after Oshkosh, any rumor that I wasn’t in attendance is greatly exaggerated. Granted, I drove from Oregon to Wisconsin, but I did actually attend and I can put a couple of rumors to rest. When I arrived […]
Let’s not go flying
I came to flying later than many. In part because I was sort of a hippie kid more attracted to the idea of playing guitar professionally than suiting up as a member of the military. And while those two paths might not seem mutually exclusive today, in the Viet Nam era they were often thought […]
LSA celebrates 12-year anniversary
A dozen years ago, at the beginning of September 2004, FAA’s newest regulation became “effective” as the agency terms it. That regulation gave birth to Sport Pilot and Light-Sport Aircraft. The former is a new pilot certificate and the latter is a fresh breed of aircraft that gained acceptance in a completely new way. How […]