At midday Saturday, March 3, 2018, a pair of South Carolina Air National Guard F-16 Fighting Falcon warplanes swept over the rural Pee Dee landscape and crossed the local Red Hill Cemetery in a thunderous flyover. After the low pass the jets, with afterburners blazing, climbed vertically into the blue sky until the sound faded […]
Video: Hanging out at the airport
Smitty Smith of FunPlacesToFly.com sent in this video, explaining: “Every first Saturday of every month, rain or shine, the members of EAA Chapter 1246 gather at McKinney National Airport in McKinney, Texas, to be with good friends and visitors to talk aviation.” https://youtu.be/3OoNuaCrTqg
A special day of aviation for burn survivors
Aerolease Associates and Van Nuys Airport (VNY) in Southern California recently hosted a special group of visitors from the Children’s Burn Foundation’s Young Adult Survivors and Supporters for an exciting afternoon of aviation. Survivors, supporters and their families arrived at Aerolease Associates and were treated to a catered lunch before meeting and hearing from some […]
GA advocates lobby for full funding for contract towers
Nine aviation advocacy groups have asked Congress to fully fund the Contract Tower Program as part of the FAA’s fiscal year 2019 appropriations bill. In a March 2 letter to lawmakers, industry leaders voiced support for language in the current version of the bill that calls for “not less than $172,000,000” in funding for the […]
Take a ride in a movie star
The B-17 “The Memphis Belle” which had the title role in a movie focusing on World War II aviators in England, is offering rides under the FAA’s new “Living History Flight Experience Program.” The aircraft, which will be flying out of Warbird Adventures at Kissimmee Gateway Airport (KISM) in Florida during the spring, was restored by […]
Pre-buy inspection ends in crash
The non-certificated pilot/owner of the Piper PA22-108 was conducting a local test flight with a prospective buyer, who held a private pilot certificate. After exiting the traffic area at the airport in Lincolnton, N.C., and climbing to an altitude of 1,800′, the owner permitted the prospective buyer to manipulate the flight controls. The pilot then […]
Pictures of the day: Flying GA in Italy
Picture of the Day takes us to Italy. Frequent contributor Piergiorgio Goldoni sent in these photos, taken during a flight in an Alpi Aviation Pioneer above Appennino Tosco-Emiliano National Park, a state-held natural preserve in northern and central Italy. He notes they took off from Sassuolo Airstrip in Modena, Italy, and flew from Cerreto Pass […]
Book: The 25 Most Influential Aircraft of All Time
If you had to pick what you believed were the 25 most influential aircraft of all time, could you do it? Could you limit it to just 25? Are there 25? For that matter, what you believe to be influential might be vastly different from a list compiled by Bill Lear or Bill Boeing. A […]
F-104 flight training takes off at Kennedy Space Center
American businessman John Rost has become the first to complete a new FAA-approved F-104 flight training program at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The new civilian astronaut training program for licensed pilots is offered exclusively by commercial space marketing company Infinity Space, Inc. Ground school and in-flight instruction is provided by Starfighters, Inc., operators […]