Search Results for: Lockheed

If you own a copy of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X, you might want to grab a pen, scratch the name Microsoft off the box and write Lockheed Martin instead. That’s because Lockheed Martin has licensed the software and the intellectual goodies that go with it, marking the end of the line for one of the […]

The airplane wreckage was located by the Civil Air Patrol on December 24, after ELT signals received by overflying aircraft were reported. The first report was received by Salt Lake Center at 1653 Mountain time on December 23, 2010. Available information indicated the airplane departed Jasper, Texas, with Jackson, Wyo., as its destination.

While at the 2010 NBAA convention, I stopped by the booth of Stratos Aircraft to check up on the progress the company was making with its eponymous single-engine jet. What I discovered was pretty much exactly what I expected to discover. The company was exceedingly optimistic about the prospects for its jet while admitting there […]

Flying has been said to involve hours and hours of boredom populated with moments of sheer terror. Of course, if were doing it right, there might be a number of times when were very busy, but avoiding the moments of sheer terror is what its all about. Indeed, one of the things separating seasoned pilots from those with less experience involves how we respond when things dont go as we planned.

A couple of books I’ve been dipping into lately strike me as epitomizing some changes that have occurred in the past 50 or 60 years. One of them, Wolfgang Langewiesche’s classic Stick and Rudder, found its way to me through an old friend who, being well into his 80s, sold his airplane and with great […]

At my day job, it’s easy to take for granted that most aspects of flight planning are generated by typing the appropriate codes into the computer. The data have already been entered by the dispatcher and the load planner. For the most part, my job is to simply review the information. When I made the […]

July 2010 — The Mooney 201 was a product of an earlier fuel crisis, the one that plagued the United States for most of the 1970s. When adjusted for inflation, avgas cost matched today’s $5 per gallon and up, and many pilots prized fuel efficiency matched with speed above all other airplane characteristics. Mooneys had […]

_June 2010 _ THE THREE ROOMS THAT constitute the offices of the Aereon Corp. are tucked away on the second floor of a brick building near the Princeton University campus. The narrow hallway is lined with gray doors, many of which have hand-lettered business signs on them. You have to know the Aereon offices are […]

On a cool, pastel-gray morning that was typical for the city of Syracuse, New York, a wide-eyed 6-year-old boy clambered up the stairs that led to the entry door of a Lockheed Electra. With Mom at his side, the boy was given a tour of the cockpit by the crew. At the completion of the […]

Certain universal questions pop up over and over, like “Why is there something, when there could be nothing?” or “Can a jet fly faster than its own exhaust velocity?” Let’s look at the second one; I’ll get back to the first in a future column. Reciprocating engines inhale about 15 pounds of air for every […]