J. Mac McClellan

Most pilots believe that it’s easier to fly IFR with a big flat-glass primary flight display (PFD) instead of the six-pack of mechanical instruments. Until recently I wasn’t convinced. I don’t know of any controlled studies that have compared the pilot workload, or the precision of basic attitude, altitude, heading and airspeed control, when flying […]

Business jets have an image problem. More precisely, a few of the people flying around in business jets — namely executives of companies that are burning through taxpayer money after having lost billions of dollars and having laid off hundreds of thousands of workers — have an image problem, and it has rubbed off on […]

In late November Eclipse Aviation filed for bankruptcy, and investors, suppliers, Eclipse 500 owners and order holders lost well over $1 billion. There has never been a financial failure of this scale in the entire history of general aviation. Eclipse investors have lost hundreds of millions, but individuals are also big losers. Anybody who had […]

We have all been waiting for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to drop the bomb on private flying, and last fall it did with announcement of its new rules that impact all airplanes certified for takeoff weights above 12,500 pounds. In general, the TSA has taken the security procedures it inflicts on airlines and their […]

When the FAA changed its weather reporting format to match the international metar standard several years ago many of us with more than a few years in the logbook scoffed. For one thing, what was a “metar” anyway? We had grown up, and grown old, with the sequence report that used to clatter out of […]

There is no greater concern among pilots and airplane owners today than the cost of fuel. Prices vary widely from airport to airport, but $5 is often on the low end and $7 a gallon is not the top. And in many instances jet fuel costs more than avgas, a reversal of traditional pricing. Fuel […]

Everybody is flying less these days. Flight time in piston-powered personal airplanes is probably off the most due to the high fuel prices, but the economy and fuel costs are trimming flight hours for airlines and corporate operators, too. The noise office at my home base, Westchester County Airport just north of New York City, […]

General aviation has always been divided, or bifurcated as the business school types would say. One group flies for personal travel and recreation, and the other flies for business reasons. Most people who fly for business actually enjoy flying, particularly the owner-pilots, but even those who are strictly passengers are often aviation enthusiasts so the […]

Could an airplane hit the bull’s-eye more squarely in today’s environment than the TBM 850? I don’t see how. The turboprop single burns about half again as much fuel as a typical piston twin, but it flies at least 100 knots faster on that fuel. And its range easily stretches out over 1,200 nm even […]

What comes to mind when you think of the National Business Aviation Association? If you say the NBAA represents traditional corporate flight departments with full-time professional pilots flying turbine-powered aircraft, you would be correct. At least that describes the core of the NBAA. But Ed Bolen, president and CEO of the hugely successful association, says […]