Search Results for: Lockheed

Bill Warlick has had an interesting career. He began flying at 14, graduated from NC State in Aerospace Engineering, joined the Navy, instructed in T-28s, and flew several tours in the P-3 Orion – the Navy’s patrol version of the Lockheed Electra – before spending three winters flying ski-equipped C-130s in Antarctica. He did stints […]

I received a letter from a reader after our story on the Cessna Mustang ran in the May issue asking me to compare the Mustang to the original Lear Jet 23, to measure 40 years of progress in light business jets. Interesting idea, and there is a valid comparison, but it’s not the Lear and […]

Rich Stowells articles on unusual attitude recoveries (Unusual Recoveries, June 2007; Unusual Recoveries II, July 2007) should be required reading for all CFIs. His analysis of the different spin recovery techniques was very well done. I have been instructing in aviation for 30+ years, both civilian and military, and it always amazes me how very experienced aviators know little about the dynamics of spins. One of my USAF students in T-37s had over 4000 hours and held both an ATP and CFII. He did very well until we got to spins. He didnt understand them and was terrified of them. It wasnt until the end of his T-37 training that he was finally able to master a spin recovery. The key was stopping what caused the spin in the first place: the yaw and stall. Thats what the NASA standard recovery does.

Anyone who’s picked up the phone to obtain a weather briefing from an FAA Flight Service Station (FSS) in recent weeks has discovered the ongoing consolidation by federal contractor Lockheed Martin (LockMart) isn’t going so well.

For years, Flight Service Stations have been the “Rodney Dangerfields” of general aviation: they got no respect, no respect at all. Some of that began to change in 2005, when Lockheed Martin took over operation of 58 Automated Flight Service Stations from the FAA. Slowly, things began to get better: Wait times shortened, briefers tried harder, fewer flight plans got lost. In recent months, I noticed what I consider substantial improvement at the Leesburg (Va.) facility and others.

A full page ad in the morning paper invited readers to a showing and reception for one of the new small jets (VLJs) at Million Air Cincinnati on the following Tuesday evening. It sounded like fun so I called the 800 number for an invitation. The young salesman was cordial but seemed intent on establishing […]

One of the fallacies of flying IFR in marginal-to-good weather is that its safe to presume everyone else out there is on the same page, under the watchful eye of ATC. Instead, its completely legal for someone else to be scud-running in barely VFR weather while youve gone to the trouble to get the rating, file the flight plan and follow the clearance.

The Sino Swearingen SJ30-2 flies in the face of conventional business jet wisdom in almost every respect. While the rest of the industry is firmly convinced that passengers demand the greatest possible amount of cabin space and simply won’t endure a cramped cabin for very long, the SJ30 delivers coast-to-coast range at a cruise speed […]

As I close my eyes and lean back against my towel-covered lounge chair, my toes digging into soft, white sand and my senses calmed by the sound of the waterfall splashing into the lagoon next to me, I have to work hard to convince myself that I am not, in fact, somewhere in Hawaii or […]

The NTSB recently took a close look at weather-related accidents to see how different pilots manage risk. The results provide clues on avoiding weather-related mishaps.