Search Results for: Lockheed

We’ve all been there: A personal or professional commitment encourages us to cut a corner or launch when otherwise we might not. The corner could be a mechanical deficiency with the aircraft, failing to obtain a weather briefing or taking off with minimal fuel. The pressure of schedules and commitments tempts us to do things like make a zero-zero instrument takeoff, shoot an approach in conditions below published minimums or stretch our fuel to the breaking point in the face of headwinds and the time it will take to make an en route fuel stop.

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing in Washington after that super-secret American spy drone fell into Iranian hands last week. Tehran claims it shot down the UAV, which analysts have identified as an RQ-170 Sentinel. The White House has asked for it back. The Iranian government has responded with the diplomatic equivalent of, “In your […]

Sitting in the jump seat of a corporate Gulfstream G450 on approach to Morristown Municipal Airport’s Runway 5, I saw the tiny starlings a fraction of a second before the copilot called out, matter-of-factly, “Birds.” We flew through an entire flock of the little creatures and, although I was pretty sure we’d hit more than […]

(October 2011) Signature Engines president Bill Schmidt and the company’s chief security officer, Boo Radley, strolled across the ramp to my hangar last week as I was debugging the 180. Boo is actually a spoiled but lovable mutt rescued by Bill and named for the lonely character in To Kill a Mockingbird. Summer flying in […]

(August 2011) Just after 11 o’clock on a chilly San Francisco morning, Jan. 18, 1911, a 24-year-old civilian demonstration pilot named Eugene Ely coaxed his 50 hp Curtiss pusher biplane into the sky, made a wide circle over San Francisco Bay and set down on the deck of the anchored U.S. Navy armored cruiser USS […]

Boeing has announced a plan to use Atlas V rockets to launch the company’s commercial astronaut capsule into space for a series of future test flights. The plan is contingent upon additional funding from NASA, but Boeing’s vice president and program manager of commercial crew programs John Elbon maintains that, “This selection marks a major […]

(August 2011) As I rolled through the security gate at the GA side of the Key West Airport, I glanced toward the ramp area reserved for corporate jets and larger equipment. I caught a glimpse of the tail and upper fuselage of a hulking airplane as it taxied to a parking spot. Even with my […]

Airshows energize me. No, I’m not talking about the hotdogs or the fried food. It’s the energy generated by a large group of people with a mutual passion for airplanes that fuels me. This week, one of the largest gatherings of aviation aficionados can be found at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the […]

Aviation media outlets and those covering many other industries have been exploring what appears to be a significant threat to the viability and utility of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in the U.S. This comes courtesy of LightSquared, a Reston, Va.-based company building what it says is a state-of-the-art open wireless broadband network. Originally, LightSquared was to use satellites instead of ground stations to provide the necessary coverage, and it received Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorization in 2004.

(April 2011) Coincidentally (maybe) I’m writing this on the anniversary of the day Martin Luther nailed 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral. He was later declared a heretic by the Diet of Worms, a bunch of church guys who met in a German town with a really funny name. It’s possible that posting […]