Touch & Go

In 1997 I suffered an angina attack and subsequently underwent a four-way heart bypass operation. My recovery was normal and I regained my third-class medical certificate in less than a year. Over the years I’ve written about my medical problem several times because I wanted others facing a similar situation to recognize that their flying […]

In olden times – that’s 60 to 70 years ago – wrist watches with glow-in-the-dark radium numbers were popular. Whether we wore a Timex or a Rolex, that’s what we wanted. In those days, many aircraft instruments glowed in the dark. That, too, was accomplished with minute amounts of radium-226. Thousands of World War II […]

Amidst the rubble of a fatal King Air crash, accident investigator Greg Feith found something strange: A Velcro strip on the panel. When he asked the pilot’s wife what it was for, she told him that her husband would put an alarm clock there, set for 15-minute intervals. During his regular flights from Oklahoma to […]

In Thomas Friedman’s book, “The World is Flat,” he explains that there is a segment of the world’s population that seems to be continually striving to bring everyone else down to its very low level. Fortunately, he explains, the vast majority of people look around and see how great other people are living and notice […]

Landmarks make a city. Can you imagine Seattle without the Space Needle or St. Louis without the arch? Aviation and history buffs in the Silicon Valley are pondering the idea of a landscape without Hangar One, the dirigible hangar that dominates the grounds of Ames Research Center at Moffett Field. The grand old building, which […]

It is all one sky. No matter how you use it, or what your involvement with it, all of aviation’s many segments fly through or in some way make use of the same sky. The implication, then, is that all of us – private pilots, airlines, business aircraft owners, agricultural services, fuel companies, weather services […]

As I write this I am preparing mentally and physically for my annual excursion to Oshkosh for EAA AirVenture. Since 1970 I’ve missed only three or four of these grand aviation extravaganzas. I haven’t been able to attend the entire gathering every year, but for the vast majority of those years I’ve been on hand […]

Were you part of the annual migration of aviation enthusiasts to Oshkosh for EAA AirVenture? Pilots joke that attending the event at least once in your lifetime is required by the Code of Federal Aviation Regulations. In the regular world just a fraction of the population are pilots. During Oshkosh, they are in the majority. […]

We are losing an average of two airports a month in the United States, according to the most believable numbers, while substantial growth of general aviation is being predicted for the next 10 years. General Aviation News wants you to get involved in stopping — indeed, reversing — that disturbing loss rate. We should be […]