Flying Staff

Seventeen years ago, I stood inside an old B-24 airplane at the Asheville, North Carolina, airport and watched, transfixed, as a middle-aged man connected with a father he’d never known, just by sitting in the cockpit of the plane his father had flown … and died in … during World War II. It was one […]

There is little excuse for any pilot flying in the United States not to have seen a recent weather radar picture when thunderstorms are possible along the route. Any computer can link you to Nexrad radar sites before takeoff, and satellite downlink of more current weather radar is available at a price that makes sense […]

Texas Sport Cub (Photo: EAA / Jim Koepnick) Each month, Flying answers questions about the new sport pilot/light sport aircraft rule with assistance from the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), the authority on the opportunities available within the category commonly known as “sport pilot”: Q: I weigh 330 lbs. Am I foolish to think I can […]

Just as gourmands judge a meal by the quality of the dessert, nonpilot passengers rate a pilot’s skills by the landing at the end of the flight. No question, based on their recent “landing” Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger and First Officer Jeff Skiles, of US Airways Flight 1549, have gotten top marks for their […]

The entire normal operating checklist for the new Embraer Phenom 100 light business jet fits on both sides of a laminated card that you can slide into a shirt pocket. While other business jets need giant spiral-bound pages upon pages to go through before liftoff, the Phenom is designed to cut pilot workload to a […]

I interviewed a physicist once who told me that the kind of “warp speed” space-bending travel made famous by Star Trek wasn’t theoretically impossible. It’s just that we don’t know enough yet how to make it work. Something about requiring more energy than exists on the planet, at our current state of knowledge, or some […]

At a web-based press conference officials of Bombardier’s Learjet division gave a progress report on the status of the company’s Learjet 85 all-composite midsize bizjet. If it succeeds, the 85 would be the first all-composite business jet to earn certification under Part 25. The program, however, appeared to be at risk with the failure of […]

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University ordered 10 Diamond DA42 L360 Twin Stars for use in its training programs at the Daytona campus. ERAU plans to take delivery of the airplanes and have them up and running in time for the start of the fall semester. The L360 version of the DA42 replaces the turbodiesel Thielert engines with […]