Pia Bergqvist

A new look has been bestowed upon the Memphis Belle (The Movie), the B-17 Flying Fortress used as the platform for the 1990 movie Memphis Belle, a fictionalized depiction of the airplane’s final mission. The B-17 is still in service and is operated by the Liberty Foundation, which uses the airplane to educate the public […]

One of the callout items used in crew resource management, and one that many pilots are and should be in the habit of using, is “positive rate of climb.” The process of confirming that an initial climb has been established after the airplane leaves the ground is the signal to retract the gear. Even if […]

The Air Force has concluded its investigation into an incident last July when a C-17 Globemaster III landed at the wrong airport. And the reasons for the mistake, according to a report that resulted from the Air Force investigation and published by the Tampa Bay Tribune, went beyond simple human error. Rather than touching down […]

A new search and rescue (SAR) program called Enhanced Special Reporting Service (eSRS) is being tested in Alaska. The program uses GPS tracking devices in an effort to reduce SAR response times. Pilots on a VFR flight plan using GPS tracking devices such as SPOT and Spidertracks can participate in the program and additional devices […]

More than two weeks after a large team of researchers, archeologists and photographers arrived in Yangon, Myanmar, the search for a collection of Spitfires, which British farmer and warbird researcher David Cundall claims were buried there after World War II, has been unfruitful. Wargaming.net, which funded the expedition, reported bringing more than 1,300 pounds of […]

The NTSB has released the probable cause for the July 2011 crash of a Wright “B” Flyer replica in which two people died during a test flight in Springfield, Ohio. After examining the wreck of the experimental airplane, investigators found a crack in a weld on the left propeller shaft, which, according to the NTSB […]

Hungarian company Interspect claims to have broken a world record with a highly detailed aerial photograph, providing clarity of objects down to an impressive 0.5 cm in width. The picture, which was taken at the Military Memorial Park in Pákozd, Hungary, is clear enough that, when you zoom in close, you can easily see the […]

Aerobatic pilot Fred Cabañas and Mexican television reporter Jorge Lopez Vives died when Cabañas’ airplane crashed on Tuesday afternoon. The crash happened at the Caribbean island of Cozumel while Cabañas and Vives were working on footage for a Mexican TV network program whose title translates as “Extreme Adrenaline,” the Associated Press reported. Cabañas, who had […]

The FAA FAR Part 23 Aviation Rule Making Committee (ARC) formed in the fall of 2011 met for the last time to finalize its recommendations for the overhaul of certification standards for aircraft weighing less than 19,000 pounds. More than 65 regulators and industry team members from the U.S., China, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil and […]

We all remember the tedious work of the manual flight planning required for the Private Pilot certificate, where we spent hours calculating headwind components, ground speeds and, ultimately, the fuel required for the trip. Advanced avionics have made the task of knowing whether you have enough fuel as complicated as entering the fuel remaining and […]