Search Results for: general aviation inc

I get the question a lot: Whats the best iPad app for aviation? Its impossible to answer. Not only is there no perfect app for all users, the field changes so quickly advice is only good until the competition releases its next update. In fact, I cant even answer whats the best app for only chart use under IFR.

As the holiday season gives way to the interminable darkness of winter, we pause in our discontent to honor, ridicule and learn from those pilots whove slipped the surly bonds of reason and, once again, slapped the face of God-knows-what foolishness.

With officials in Washington unable to agree on a budget compromise, the stalemate known as the sequester resulted in an announcement that 149 contract towers across the country will be closed, starting in April. Although the budget restrictions apply only to this fiscal year, which ends September 30, its unclear whether any of the closed towers will be included in the next budget. Some local entities have come forward to fund operations, but many are…

An increasing amount of instrument flying is done using technologically advanced airplanes and sophisticated avionics. Correct use of automation improves safety immensely by giving pilots the time to monitor systems, gather information, and plan ahead. But researchers have found that as a group we do not use automation effectively. Automation presents additional challenges. Over reliance […]

After six weeks of digging in Burma, British aviation enthusiast David Cundall suspended his search for the dozens of pristine Spitfires he believes were buried at an airfield by British troops at the end of World War II. His main backer pulled out when officials limited the crews operations and the initial efforts failed to turn up any supporting evidence. The authorities will not give us permission to dig because of the risk of undermining…

Imagine a Piper J3 Cub parked beside a mighty double-decker Airbus A380. The two airplanes couldn’t be more different, yet both function on the same four principles: thrust, drag, lift, and weight. The 1.2 million pound Airbus just scales them up a thousand times over the 1,200 pound Piper. If the Command Center determines that […]

You never thought about oxygen during your training until after your advanced ratings years later when you finally started flying at altitudes requiring oxygen. At first you probably just borrowed a portable bottle. Perhaps later you flew a plane with a built-in system. But you never liked that cannula stuck up your nose, so you bought a pressurized twin Cessna 421 with its requisite built-in oxygen system. With pressurization, you again no longer think about oxygen.But…

Jack Pelton, former Cessna CEO and interim EAA president, now is leading a new general aviation business consortium that aims to promote and sell remanufactured aircraft. The Aviation Alliances first product is called the Excalibur, which combines the fuselage of a Cessna 421 with two Pratt & Whitney PT6A-135A turboprop engines, an all-new interior, and Garmin avionics, for about $2.5 million. Weve assembled a whos-who of aviation leaders and resources on this team to ensure…

If the international aviation bureaucracy were ever mated with a one-size-fits-all computer program, the progeny might well be the ICAO International Flight Plan. Everything anyone might wish to know has a place on this form. But, in case theres an obscure bit of trivia without a special code or box in which to put it, theres a way to handle that. If Wilbur and Orville had been faced with anything like this, wed still be…

Checklist…checklist…checklist. Its been drummed into us to use a checklist since our first lesson. And, indeed, we should be using a checklist. Unfortunately, most of the so-called checklists out there are actually do lists-step-by-step instructions on how to do stuff, formatted in checklist form. Of course, do-lists have their place during training, but most accomplished pilots should be using a checklist. …