Search Results for: build your own airplane

The most important human factor in aviation is the pilot, and there has been considerable discussion in the aviation media about the decrease in the number of student pilots and the general lack of interest in aviation, especially among young people. Various factors have been discussed, including the increase in the cost of flying, the […]

Rubidoux, California, located in Riverside County, is nestled in the Jurupa Valley between the Santa Ana River and the Santa Ana Mountains. This fertile valley is known for its citrus, as one of the first areas in eastern California to be settled by Europeans and more recently, as the birthplace of baseball’s infamous Barry Bonds. […]

This Memorial Day weekend was my most special one to date. While I didn’t celebrate it the way it was intended – in remembrance of the members of our Armed Forces who gave their lives to protect our freedom – I had a chance to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, […]

The other day I read about an accident that happend in a neighborhood in the Los Angeles, California area. As I was flying over the congested spread of the city later that day I was contemplating what my options would be should I have an engine failure. With the crowded streets, tightly packed homes and […]

The NTSB held a fascinating meeting at its Washington headquarters on Tuesday morning that explored in detail the poor safety record of experimental amateur-built aircraft and produced a laundry list of solutions aimed at stemming the problem. The raw data presented in the NTSB’s study of experimental aircraft safety was wholly absorbing in and of […]

Have you ever had a craving for pie? Not just any pie, but made from scratch, crispy yet flaky, buttery, still warm from the oven pie. After doing research and speaking to fellow aviators, the consensus is “the” best pie in the Pacific Northwest tri-state area (Oregon, Washington & Idaho) is at Andrea Raymor and […]

The Phenom 100 sitting on the ramp at Clay Lacy Aviation in Van Nuys, California, looked for all the world like a Brazilian airplane, but it wasn’t, at least not entirely. It was, in fact, the second Phenom 100 to be assembled in the United States, at Embraer‘s impressive facility in Melbourne, Florida. The Melbourne […]

I’ve always been intrigued by accelerated flight training courses that promise to add on the next rating or certificate in a fixed number of days for a set price. Maybe it’s because the concept is so far removed from how I learned to fly back in the 1980s. At the local grass strip where I […]

While details of the F/A-18 crash in Virginia Beach, Virginia are still murky, as always there is something to learn from an accident. In this case, we should all think about how current we are with emergency procedures. Military pilots spend countless hours training in simulators and airplanes for events that likely will never happen […]

As we all know, general aviation covers a wide range of aircraft types, from Cessna Skycatchers and Robinson R22s to Gulfstream G650s and Sikorsky S92s and everything in between. Whether it’s a vintage Cherokee flying 40 hours a year or a shiny new King Air flying 400, if it’s privately owned and flown for business […]