Pia Bergqvist

A movement to close the Santa Monica airport in 2015 is now being fought by a new organization called Friends of Santa Monica Airport (FOSMO). Aiming to attract the general public to the airport, FOSMO organized an event at the Justice Aviation hangar last week featuring Tony Bill, director of the movie “Flyboys.” In addition […]

Cessna has a mockup of its upgraded Corvalis TTx on display at the Sun ‘n Fun Fly-In in Lakeland, Florida, this week. Equipped with Garmin‘s new G2000 avionics suite, the Corvalis TTx, which will be available for delivery in 2012, has received a full interior and exterior face lift. (Click here for a recent article […]

It made me simultaneously giggle and wince when I read that a bio-fuel study conducted by NASA is testing chicken fat as an alternative renewable jet fuel source. Researchers are using a NASA DC-8 to test what they call “Hydrotreated Renewable Jet Fuel.” “It’s made out of chicken fat, actually,” said Bruce Anderson, AAFEX II […]

The CJ1+ program has “run its course,” said Robert Stangarone, vice president of communications at Cessna Aircraft Company. Having delivered three airplanes of this model in 2010 and with only two scheduled deliveries for this year, the company cites decreased customer demand as the reason for closing down its CJ1+ production line. First introduced in […]

In an event hosted inside a large hangar at the Cessna manufacturing facility on Monday, state and local government officials and industry spokespeople showed their support of Wichita’s ailing aviation businesses and its workers. More than 2,000 people attended the event, which was organized by GAMA in partnership with Cessna, Hawker Beechcraft and Bombardier Learjet. […]

It’s no great revelation that all airplanes are made up of several different systems — some more complex than others. For the more complex systems, your POH should have several nice diagrams that display their intricate details. A prerequisite for this tip is that you learn the details of systems that run the airplane you’re […]

The safety of several Indian airlines has come into question after investigators uncovered scores of extreme violations. Pilots from IndiGo and MDLR airlines were caught flying passengers with forged qualifications, and shortly thereafter a list emerged of 56 airline pilots who had failed sobriety tests in the past two years. The drunken pilots were employed […]

The 2010 Nall Report analyzing accident data from 2009 has been released, and the findings are troubling. While at first glance the numbers appeared to show improvements in the past decade with a total of 1,418 general aviation accidents, 255 of which resulted in fatalities, they did not tell the whole story. The decrease in […]

Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that two members of the Los Angeles City Council suggested the closure of all flight schools at Santa Monica airport. This is just another scheme in a continuing battle that has been fought for decades and one that has bothered me ever since I first started flying at […]

A letter was issued to the FAA last week by the National Association of Flight Instructors (NAFI) and AOPA criticizing the recent unannounced but significant changes to the FAA knowledge test question database. Noticeable changes have appeared for the airline transport pilot (ATP), flight engineer (FE) and fundamentals of instruction (FOI) tests, and others may […]