General

While the economic downturn was devastating to aircraft manufacturers and their suppliers, there was one segment of the industry, shared ownership, that saw its business hold the line and even, in some cases, expand. Downturns often create business opportunities for companies that exist outside the core of an industry. And with shared ownership, the appeal […]

Airplanes can live such extraordinary lives; it seems that many will never die. Martha Lunken reminds us frequently that 70-year-old DC-3s are still flying and working for a living. The B-52 bombers are often twice the age of their pilots but the old Boeing flies on. And 50-year-old Bonanzas are not exactly rare. The remarkable […]

I don’t know who came up with the idea of the advertising jingle. But whoever it was, they were clearly some kind of demonic genius. How else to explain the fact that even now, more than 30 years since those rainy fall mornings when I’d listen to the radio as I got ready for school, […]

Let’s be frank. We don’t really need airfoils. Model planes with flat sheets of balsa wood for wings fly nicely; so do airplanes made of folded paper, and bumblebees and butterflies. A flat sheet makes a perfectly serviceable wing. That flat surfaces in the wind could produce the sideways force that we now call lift […]

My 1956 Cessna 180, 72B, “wintered” in Piqua, Ohio, while Mark Runge worked his magic on the annual plus some spa treatments and minor cosmetic surgery (we old girls need all the help we can get). I was in no great hurry to get the airplane back since the January weather was dreadful and then […]

I have come across a bunch of reporting on psychological studies of how humans perceive, or at least how they choose to deal with, risk to their safety. These studies helped explain to me how we pilots accept some high risks but avoid other less dangerous situations. What psychologists have proven over the years is […]

It was late March, when Midwestern flatlanders flying over the Appalachians to Florida for spring breaks or a week at Sun ‘n Fun have so often found that Old Man Winter is still very much around. A kind of permanent “front” that hangs around London, Kentucky, especially after a cold frontal passage, has scared the […]

Despite efforts by the National Business Aviation Association and some aircraft manufacturers, little success has been achieved in changing the public’s mind about private airplanes, especially jets. When the CEOs of the big three (well, the diminished three) automakers arrived in Washington, D.C., in three separate corporate jets to claim taxpayer bailout money, you didn’t […]

This is not your normal “learned about that” story. But an example of how a little bit of aviation knowledge, which didn’t appear in “the book,” that was passed on by a consummate professional probably saved my life and an airplane to boot. Many years ago (more than I’d like to admit) I was a […]

The new automatic flight control systems in airplanes ranging from fixed-gear singles to business jets are just amazing. I never imagined I would see such capability except in multimillion dollar jets, but it’s there in a Skyhawk. The big flat-glass displays get all of the attention, but it is the flight guidance computer at the […]