Search Results for: general aviation inc

Several items of interest crossed my desk in recent weeks, all of them involving the FAA and its ongoing struggle with technology and funding. That the agency has difficulties identifying and implementing strategies embracing new hardware, software and procedures shouldnt come as a surprise to anyone whos been paying attention over the last few years. Yet, these news items point out the FAA doesnt seem to have learned anything from its past mistakes and is poised to make a few more.

The article “Slow Down, You Move Too Fast” (January 2011) was enlightening. While Mr. Gibbs statements are logical, it would be helpful to have a reference describing this in more detail. Would you please provide a reference that explains the aerodynamic theory or aircraft certification process that substantiates Mr. Gibbs explanation? Although I find Aviation Safety very useful, I cannot use it as a sole reference when providing instruction.

We in the general aviation (GA) community are fond of poking fun occasionally at the FAA. Most of the time, its to highlight a perceived and sometimes real tension between the community and the agency. Frequently, this takes the form of tired clichs such as, “Im from the FAA and Im here to help you,” or another mythical phrase such as, “Were not happy until youre not happy.” When I was FAAs lead GA executive in the early 2000s, my favorite became, “Weve just upped our standards, now up yours.”

A year ago and mostly for fun, I decided to obtain an add-on glider rating. For any private or commercial airplane pilot, an add-on glider usually can be accomplished in three or four days, provided the weather cooperates. You dont even need a current medical certificate or a drivers license. It also is one of the least expensive add-on ratings an airplane pilot can attain. Flying gliders is fun, but after flying single and multi-engine aircraft for almost 50 years, glider training also helped me to look at airplane flying techniques with fresh eyes. Here are some of the things I learned.

(February 2011) — Forty-three years after obtaining a private certificate for single-engine land airplane operations, I have gotten it into my head to fly airplanes for real. By that I mean to fly passengers in somebody else’s expensive airplane. I have visions of epaulets, exotic layover destinations and, naturally, extraordinarily fast, ridiculously expensive and new […]

The safety of several Indian airlines has come into question after investigators uncovered scores of extreme violations. Pilots from IndiGo and MDLR airlines were caught flying passengers with forged qualifications, and shortly thereafter a list emerged of 56 airline pilots who had failed sobriety tests in the past two years. The drunken pilots were employed […]

FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt has been tapped to deliver one of the keynote speeches at the upcoming Pilot Training Reform Symposium, to be hosted by the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE) May 4 and 5 in Atlanta. Babbitt’s address, “Meeting the Training Challenges of the Second Century Of Flight,” is just one of […]

Aviation interests are among the nearly 20 founding members of the “Coalition to Save Our GPS,” a group created to reverse the successful application by LightSquared LLC for a nationwide satellite broadband service that experts say could interfere with GPS receivers. Announced on March 10 in Washington, D.C., the coalition includes the Air Transport Association, […]

Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that two members of the Los Angeles City Council suggested the closure of all flight schools at Santa Monica airport. This is just another scheme in a continuing battle that has been fought for decades and one that has bothered me ever since I first started flying at […]

(February 2011) — It has been seldom in the history of aviation that a single technology has revolutionized the way we fly by addressing multiple problems facing the industry and solving them all. The most important such event was the widescale adoption of the turbine engine in the 1940s. Turbines, as you know, remedied (and […]