SHORT FINAL By DEB McFARLAND Every now and then magic happens. It can happen in a certain time, at a certain place or with certain people. Mine came on a Saturday with a group of pilots from a friendly country airport called Jackson County in northeast Georgia. This particular day and time, these folks shared […]
Opinion
The Times They Are a-Changin’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Popular musician Bob Dylan said it with an album several years ago: “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” That phrase applies to general aviation today. The times they are a-changin’ is how aviation associations, politicians, agencies, and the public are seeing general aviation — and how these groups are affecting changes. For too […]
Flying ‘Songbird III’
If you are of a certain vintage, you probably remember this sentence: “Out of the clear blue of the western sky it’s Sky King!” The words were followed by majestic music that introduced the popular adventure serial from the 1940s and 1950s. The show, which first aired on radio then went to television, depicted the […]
Fuels for Sport Aircraft: The looming crisis
FOR GENERAL AVIATION NEWS By DEAN BILLING, KENT MISEGADES and TODD PETERSEN Among the hundreds of forums and workshops held at this summer’s AirVenture, few concerned a matter of greater importance to sport aviation than the two forums dealing with aviation fuels. On Monday, July 27, the EAA’s Vice President of Government Relations, Doug Macnair, […]
Forbes: Cessna Refutes the Decline of Capitalism
Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes, and longtime pilot, posted some interesting thoughts regarding Cessna’s VLJ, Embraer’s Phenom 100 and capitalism (it is Forbes after all).
NextGen: Will it cause more problems for GA than it solves?
Air traffic control has been ground based since its beginning, but under the FAA’s Next Generation (NextGen) program it will be out of this world — and it may cause general aviation some out-of-this-world problems. Air traffic control began in 1929 at St. Louis Lambert Field when Archie League was hired to direct the movements […]
The road to the hangar
I left three loads of laundry on the kitchen table, ready to be folded and put away. Grass needed cutting; tomatoes needed canning. The dog begged to go, but for him, a ride in the truck would have to wait until another day. Like me, my green Dodge Ram has seen better days. The right […]
Up Ship! Learning to fly a Zeppelin
I am enamored with airships, so when I found out that Airship Ventures, a start-up company in the San Francisco Bay area, was offering a chance to pilot one, I had to take advantage of the offer. Airship Ventures was started in 2006 by Brian and Alexandra (Alex) Hall. Brian’s background is in project development […]
Defending the slip on approach
LETTER TO THE EDITOR Thank you so much for defending the slip on approach (Short Final: The Land of Perfect). My husband and I fly a Kitfox we built in 1994 (ours), a 1968 Cardinal (mine), and a 1972 Skylane (his). The Kitfox has flaperons, but they act more to increase lift than to increase […]