Touch & Go

I moved to the Tacoma, Wash., area in 1970 and almost since that first day I can remember threats being sounded about Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW). The airport is located in the county across a bridge from the City of Tacoma, very close to the small community of Gig Harbor. Because the airport is owned […]

“Need a ride?” One of my favorite parts about Sun ‘n Fun is the people I meet when I’m driving around in the golf cart. We get golf carts because we have to cover a lot of territory for the daily paper we put out at the show. If it won’t impact my deadline I’ll […]

When I was a small boy, if a schoolmate made a statement with which another disagreed, the accepted rejoinder was “Prove it!” Later on, having discovered an interest in science, I learned that this is an appropriate response to any theory. “Prove it.” Today, however, theories abound, proofs are as scarce as hens’ teeth, and […]

For Lewis Long, volunteering at Sun ‘n Fun has been a life-changing experience. The formerly homeless man, who kicked around most of the country before settling in Lakeland, Fla., has been volunteering for six years now. The first year he volunteered for just two days, but he was “hooked” right away. “I felt for the […]

If you’ve never heard of chemtrails, don’t feel badly. I thought I’d heard most of the nutty notions affecting aviation, until a friend suggested running a Google search on chemtrails. Try it. You’ll be astonished by the concept, to begin with, and the enormous number of pages devoted to it. In sum, chemtrails enthusiasts say […]

Several years ago we asked a number of individuals prominent in the aviation world to give us their thoughts on the most important events in the history of aviation. I ran across those lists recently and it got me to thinking that a great deal has happened in the world of flight in the last […]

As I write this, Seattle is in the midst of a record-breaking rain spell. It has rained for 28 days straight. The record is 33 days. Some Pacific Northwest residents have a perverse desire to break that record. I’d just as soon see the sun again. The cold and gray weather is tedious. I think […]

Until recent times, pilots often wondered – and discussed at length – how flies land on ceilings. Do they do a half-roll first? A reversed split-s? Half of an inside loop? A few years ago, high-speed cameras finally taught us how the maneuver is done: Flies approach the ceiling in a shallow climb, contact it […]

Why is it that some people love amusement park rides that produce a physical force that mimics flying but are afraid to fly in a small airplane? One of my closest friends is a roller coaster fanatic, but he refuses to ride in a small airplane. And it’s not just because I am the PIC. […]