Search Results for: wright

Whenever two or more pilots get together in the same place, the conversation eventually gets around to which of them has the greatest number of flight hours. The yardstick of how much time youve spent aloft is more than just small-scale bragging rights, of course-it also can determine whether youre eligible for a subsequent certificate, or even legal to carry passengers. And then theres the matter of insurance coverage.The simple fact is that most of the aviation world measures how competent we are in the cockpit by how much time we may have spent there. The inference is that high-time pilots are safer, and that low-time pilots are less safe. The fallacy is highlighted if we put someone with 20,000 hours as PIC of a 747 into a piston single and ask him or her to perform an engine-out approach from downwind: Without some practice-i.e., some experience with that particular operation-its not likely to turn out well. What is experience? How to measure it? Most important: If its so valuable, how can we get more of it?

The most accurate reproduction of Charles Lindbergh’s famed Spirit of St. Louis ever built made its first test flight on Saturday when Rhinebeck Aerodrome Museum pilot and aircraft restorer/builder Ken Cassens took the replica Ryan NYP into the bright blue skies over upstate New York. “It was uneventful, which is a good thing, and I […]

What’s new in the world of avionics? Attitude indicators are now FAA approved. If you own a drone, get ready to have it registered. Virtual Air Traffic Control is coming to the States. Cargo overloading leads to crash killing nine people in Alaska. The NTSB holds a panel on loss of control, and more.

The Air Force Materiel Command has publicly admitted to a mishap in which an Air Force test pilot crew got the ride of their life in April of this year. An AC-130J Ghostrider, an airplane weighing as much as 164,000 pounds, went inverted during a test flight and was severely damaged, a mistake that is […]

When did the world shrink? When did the vast distances between continents fall away like sheer cliffs, leaving behind a much smaller planet? The aviation-savvy reader might choose a specific date, Dec. 17, 1903, on the sand dunes at Kitty Hawk with the Wright brothers — the dawn of the age of the airplane. Today, […]

As details of a tragic crash of a Hawker business jet emerge, it has been confirmed that nine people lost their lives when the airplane crashed into an apartment building in Ellet, a neighborhood in Akron, Ohio, on Tuesday. While the apartment building and an adjacent home were destroyed in the post crash fire, it […]

My 30-year love affair with DC-3s involved an eclectic agglomeration of pilots — kids working their way up from flying night freight in Aztecs and Beech 18s, corporate and airline retirees with ratings that date back to the ’50s, and grizzled soldiers of fortune who’ve drifted through life hauling “interesting” cargo in interesting parts of […]

under the control of a pilot

I’m front-page news. The lead story in my state’s big daily newspaper. On Page 1, above the fold. Where the Albuquerque Journal announced that my plane and I have “earned a spot in aviation history.” How did I do that? Simple. I set a world speed record. And you can too. WHAT DO YOU NEED […]

Doc’s Friends have a reason to cheer once again as the Wichita, Kansas-based volunteer crew has reached the point of engine start in the monumental task of returning the massive B-29 bomber to the skies. The first engine run was conducted days ago at the McConnell Air Force Base on the east side of the […]