Flying Staff

Thanks! Thanks for entering our giveaway for the Bose Aviation Headset X. You can enter once a day, so try again tomorrow! Good luck!

The only warning is a slight shudder in the ship as we brush against the tentacles of wind at the edge of the whirlpool. Then, almost before we can react, the churning waves of air coming off the mountains of Athens grab hold of us, and the airship pitches sharply upward and yaws to the […]

In our December cover story about whole-airplane parachute recovery systems, the subject that interested me most was the future of “chutes.” These new safety devices are installed on nearly 2,000 Cirrus SR20 and SR22s, and at this writing, four have been deployed in anger. While reasonable people can argue about the details surrounding those four […]

Last April, an instrument-rated private pilot took off from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport in his SR22 bound for Palm Beach International. It was solid IFR, 400 overcast. The pilot was experienced in Cirrus airplanes-he was a founder of the Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association-he regularly flew such IFR flights, and he knew his airplane well. […]

I knew the trip West after AirVenture from Green Bay, Wisconsin, to North Big Horn County Airport (U68) in Cowley, Wyoming, would bring this flat-land pilot closer to mountain peaks than I’d been for a while and require some changes in my normal operating procedures. With MEAs (minimum en route altitudes) over the Black Hills […]

I’m not given to the $100 hamburger. This euphemism for a flight designed to get the pilot and the airplane out of the house, into the air, and over to a nearby airport that features a restaurant of uncertain quality has never held me in its grasp. I’m more inclined to flights that take me […]

“We’ll just cut through the Gotthard Pass, there, and head down to Locarno on the other side,” Theddy says. I look ahead. All I see is a flat, towering wall of mountain, every bit as steep and high as the dramatic, jagged slopes edging the narrow valley we’re navigating our way through at the moment. […]

One reader castigated me for not paying enough attention to Thielert diesels. Another inquired whether the just-certified Diamond TwinStar would have superior climb performance because of the great torque of its Thielert diesel engines. A critical mass of Thielert interest has evidently been reached. Thielert GmbH is located at the small town of Lichtenstein in […]

We came from all corners of the country at our own expense to Galveston, Texas, for a 15-minute ride in an ancient airplane. Nobody came away disappointed. The money spent and the vacation days taken meant nothing, you see, because the airplane was a B-17, the Flying Fortress. This one is in the careful custody […]