Search Results for: general aviation inc

Unless you’re someone we’d really like to get to know better, it’s likely you’re not flying around in your own personal jet. Which means you probably are flying behind, between, below or in front of at least one propeller. They’re marvelous devices, often subjected to substantial forces as they unceasingly (we hope) spin thousands of times per minute. They also can be a bit mysterious, even the fixed-pitch variety.

Each year, some number of pilots come to grief because they can’t handle the demands of instrument flight beyond straight-and-level. The AOPA Air Safety Institute’s 2011 Joseph T. Nall Report, which took a close look at general aviation accidents in 2009, found 22 accidents that year in which a non-commercial fixed-wing aircraft was involved in a weather-related accident with an instrument-rated pilot aboard. Of them, 16 involved fatalities. We can do better.

In his timeless classic Fate Is The Hunter, Ernest K. Gann regales readers with several tales of in-flight emergencies, hairy takeoffs and grateful landings. Perhaps the book’s most memorable takeoff involves a grossly overweight C-87 departing Agra, India, on a hot day, aimed directly at the nearby Taj Mahal mausoleum. Of course, Gann didn’t know the airplane was overweight before beginning the takeoff. How he and his crew flew it could be viewed as a clinic on how to handle an overweight airplane.

On Feb. 12, 2009, 50 people lost their lives as Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed while on an instrument approach into Buffalo Niagara International Airport. As is the case with many accidents, several causes contributed to the crash, including icing conditions and fatigue. However, what may have saved the lives of the people on board […]

You may be intimidated by the thought of international flying, particularly with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Electronic Advance Passenger Information System — eAPIS — which was implemented in 2009. While you are subjected to major fines if you don’t comply, it is not a very complicated system. It simply involves an online portal […]

The Obama Administration’s latest budget proposal once again includes a $100-per-flight air traffic services user fee that would apply to turbine aircraft operating on IFR flight plans. The 2015 White House budget drew immediate condemnation from aviation groups, which have defeated similar user fee proposals in the past. Pete Bunce, CEO of the General Aviation […]

If you’re a private pilot or an airline transport pilot, it doesn’t take long to discover that the “small world” axiom is very true within the aviation community. A relationship developed years earlier can resurface in the most unlikely places. Because of that, I was given advice to never burn a bridge in my climb […]

I’m going to Chino, California. I’m not sure when, but I’m going. Here’s why. Exactly 65 years ago to the minute, a Boeing B-50 Superfortress named Lucky Lady II was rumbling high over the Mediterranean on an epic four-day journey, its four massive Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial engines supplying a combined 12,000 […]

Legendary fighter pilot, test pilot and airshow pilot R.A. Bob Hoover was honored last week in an extravagant event at the entrance to the Paramount Pictures Studios in Hollywood, California, where a fiberglass replica of Hoover’s P-51 “Ole Yeller” acted as the centerpiece. Nearly 500 people, including many aviation executives and celebrities, had a chance […]

I swear it happens at every fly-in I attend. I’m approaching the airfield at the recommended airspeed and altitude, following a ground track that was clearly delineated in an airshow-issued notice (sometimes an FAA Notam at larger gatherings) and I’m listening—not talking—on the designated frequency for the show, when a random pilot pops up and announces that he’s “a-comin’ in!” This guy (or gal—I’ve heard them both) knows nothing of any special procedures for the show. He may not even know there is a show going on. He just wants to land, perhaps for a bite at the terminal café, and be on his way.