J. Mac McClellan

The current administration appears to be determined to collect more money from those of us who use the national airspace system. People at the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) expect a bill that will raise fees on aviation users to be introduced into Congress no later than this spring. And they’re not alone in that […]

Beech unveiled a new, more powerful version of the King Air C90 at EAA AirVenture 2005. The new version of the venerable turboprop, the C90GT, will have new Pratt & Whitney PT6A-135A engines rated at 750 shp, which will increase cruise speed from about 245 knots to over 270 knots. The new engines are flat […]

The crash of the American Airlines Airbus in New York in November of 2001, has revealed that what nearly every pilot of all experience levels believed about maneuvering speed, Va, is incorrect. It turns out that a pilot can break the airframe by moving the flight controls even when flying at an airspeed below Va. […]

It’s tempting to say that before the September 11 terrorist attacks we had nearly total freedom to fly as we pleased in our national airspace. But that would be a delusion. Access to much of our airspace has not been unfettered for decades, and the right to fly in very large portions of airspace has […]

There has been much speculation about the safety of the many new mini jets now in development. It shocks me that there are more predictions about how these small jets will change aviation, including the safety record, than there is speculation about whether the airplanes can even be delivered at the prices some promise. But […]

The FAA has conducted a study among pilots to determine how they use Flight Service Stations. The agency also hopes to determine what we like and don’t like about the FSS. Bottom line: the FAA is looking for reasons, or even cover, to radically change the FSS, or even eliminate it. The FAA’s reason for […]

I don’t like the term “used” or “preowned” applied to airplanes. Those are standards of the automotive industry, and airplanes and cars have next to nothing in common. The best way to describe an airplane that isn’t brand new is “existing.” That’s the term typically applied to buildings. They are either new or existing. You […]

Graduations are always a combination of happiness celebrating a job well done and sadness that a big part of the lives of everyone involved has come to an end. Over the four years our daughter Karen spent at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, my Baron was involved in every phase. Karen had […]

In more than 30 years of flying I have flown only a handful of ILS approaches with the weather right at minimums. The same is true for most pilots. I think the reason is that the weather seldom cooperates. Fog frequently drops the visibility well below the required minimums, but mist, drizzle and rain usually […]

I have done my share of carping about the many new airspace and operational regulations imposed by the FAA and TSA since the terrorist attacks on September 11th. But now that I have taken my head out of the overheated atmosphere of New York and Washington, I realize that we pilots who fly for personal […]