Search Results for: wright

(function(d, s, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) return; var js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = ‘//cdn4.wibbitz.com/static.js’; d.getElementsByTagName(‘body’)[0].appendChild(js); }(document, ‘script’, ‘wibbitz-static-embed’)); There are a lot of good reasons that some airplanes will never — and in some cases should never — fly again. Sometimes the safety, economic or logistical obstacles are just too great. Sometimes […]

Your May 2015 issue exemplifies continued excellence by probing the contributing factors leading to aircraft accidents. Articles on icing, fueling, landings, situational awareness and IMC are likely activities that we experience every time we fly. My interest as a pilot and investigator is to focus on the factors that lead to human response errors.

Connecticut lawmakers hoping to adopt the coveted “First in Flight” slogan for their state have been urged to stick with the generally acknowledged claim that the Ohio-born Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur, were the first to pull off powered flight in a heavier-than-air craft, in December 1903 in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. The controversy […]

The FAA, NTSB and the aviation community have spent a lot of time and effort analyzing how and why pilots lose control of their aircraft, historically the leading cause of fatal general aviation accidents. A recent report by the FAA/industry General Aviation Joint Steering Committee (GAJSC-see the sidebar on the opposite page), closely looked at the reasons why, highlighting dozens of recommended mitigations to reduce loss-of-control (LOC) accidents. Many of its recommendations have great value.

There have been millions of pilots and a few hundred really great ones, those whose achievements pushed the boundaries of flight. Names like Neil Armstrong, Charles Lindbergh, Chuck Yeager, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Manfred von Richtofen, and Amelia Earhart are familiar to aviators and non-fliers alike. Others, like those featured here, are known to aviation […]

The January day was crisp and cold with just wisps of high clouds painting the Texas sky as we, my two Air Force cadet student pilots and I, began our IFR cross-country. Before starting back to our base in west Texas, I checked the weather and was gratified to see the forecast we had received […]

Am I ready for this flight? Thats the question I found myself asking when I decided to resume flying in a rental aircraft after a six-month lapse. This was after selling the V35B Bonanza Id owned for eight years. Since I was due for a flight review anyway, I engaged an instructor and got checked out to fly a Cessna 172 from a local flight school. I was comfortable flying the Skyhawk after only an hour and three landings, despite not having flown in six months. That certainly wouldnt be the case for all the aircraft Im rated in: The last time I flew a jet was more than seven years ago.

A scaled down version of the Fantasy of Flight museum in Polk City, Florida, has opened while work continues on a major expansion that owner Kermit Weeks has named “Act III.” “We want to allow the aircraft-loving public the opportunity to reconnect while we continue to create and design the next iteration, Act III, of […]

Solar Impulse, the one-of-a-kind solar-powered aircraft designed to fly around the world, is now in Dubai, where it will launch in March. The aircraft was built and tested in Switzerland. It was then disassembled and flown to Dubai aboard a cargo airplane. Andr Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard, who have led the effort, said they are confident in the aircrafts capability and their own training, and they will take turns as pilot. The expedition is expected to take 25 days of flying, and will be completed in stages over four or five months. Some legs above the Atlantic and Pacific will require five to six days of nonstop solo flight. The aircrafts wings measure about 236 feet across, and carry more than 17,000 solar cells.

The National Aviation Hall of Fame has selected four notable figures into its 2015 class, who will be formally enshrined next October at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The inductees include Robert N. Hartzell, Abe Silverstein, Eugene “Gene” Kranz, and U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert L. Cardenas […]