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June 18, 2013
Detained by the Feds: What Should You Do?
Robert Goyer
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As I’ve written about very recently, there are alarming reports of incidents of pilots being detained — though not arrested — by federal agents, who then search the subjects' airplanes. According to a law enforcement source we interviewed who went through the training for such interdictions, the stops are being made in a shotgun approach (lots of pellets, very few hits) to finding drugs.
June 11, 2013
Unleaded Avgas: Do We Really Have To?
Robert Goyer
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The FAA the other day released a request for alternate fuels to test in what it hopes will be an accelerated adoption of an unleaded avgas into the GA fleet. It's aiming for five years. I'll bet my house that won't happen. 
 
In any case, upon the announcement, alphabet groups rose as if as one to applaud the move by the FAA to take the initiative to do something about the 100LL problem.
 
It is a problem, though it is by nature far more of a political problem than an environmental one.
June 06, 2013
Who Should Pay for AirVenture Controllers?
Stephen Pope
EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin
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By now you’ve probably heard that the FAA wants the Experimental Aircraft Association to foot the cost for air traffic controllers at this summer’s EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin – to the tune of about $500,000. Not surprisingly, EAA is hopping mad. In a normal year this request would be ludicrous. After all, pilots who buy fuel to fly to Oshkosh pay for ATC services in the form of the 19.4-cent-per-gallon tax on avgas.

June 04, 2013
This Isn't America
Robert Goyer

Photo by James Tourtellotte via Customs
and Border Patrol

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You’ve probably read reports about innocent pilots arriving at their destinations after long cross-country flights only to be greeted by squadrons of police agents — from local cops to Homeland Security and who knows what other agencies — to search and question them as though they were under arrest.
May 29, 2013
10 Communiques from Geneva
Robert Goyer
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10. EBACE (European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition), LABACE (Latin America), ABACE (Asian) and for our North American edition, it'll soon be just... BACE? Why not USBASE? NABACE? Regardless, the rebranding of NBAA, a known commodity for more than 50 editions (not all of which I’ve had the pleasure of attending) as BACE is coming this year. It took me about 5 years to start calling Jeffco by its new name — Rocky Mountain something — and about that same length of time to start calling Oshkosh “AirVenture,” something I still regularly slip up on.
May 23, 2013
Should the FAA Grant Icon A5's Weight Increase?
Stephen Pope
Icon's A5 sport amphibian.
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No doubt you’ve heard by now that Icon Aircraft is asking the FAA for an exemption to LSA weight rules for the company’s sleek Icon A5 light sport amphibian. Specifically, the company is seeking a 250-pound max gross weight increase above the LSA limit of 1,430 pounds. Without the exemption, it’s unlikely the A5 can enter production in its current form, at least anytime soon.

May 21, 2013
My Ride in the Best Bizjet in the World
Robert Goyer
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There aren’t many of our readers who are likely to go out and buy a Gulfstream G650 at $60-million-plus per copy, but there are a few, and those few are most likely going to find themselves not in the left or right seat but in one of the seats in back, doing business, spending time with the family or just kicking up their heels and enjoying the ride.
May 15, 2013
Were Tower Closures a Grand Bluff?
Robert Goyer
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With the announcement on Friday that the sequester-driven closures of hundreds of contract control towers was off, we might be tempted to pat ourselves on the back for our hard work in fighting the misguided judgment of the administration.
May 09, 2013
Does the FAA Care about the Little Guy?
Stephen Pope
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The FAA’s handling of a variety of prickly issues from the planned closures of scores of contract control towers to the hotly anticipated Part 23 rewrite to the up-in-the-air fate of leaded aviation gasoline will affect general aviation in important ways for years to come. Get the Part 23 rewrite right, and we could witness a resurgence in GA flying; get it wrong, and we might inadvertently put the industry into a graveyard spiral.

May 07, 2013
The Myth of Pushing Limits 29
Robert Goyer
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The following is from the March 2013 print issue.
 
For as long as airplanes have been around, pilots have held a number of beliefs about them that are out of line with reality, which is an alarming fact given that pilots are the ones responsible for making sure a flight goes well and ends well.
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