Search Results for: wright

Soon after the Wright brothers’ famous flight in 1903, the ways that we humans had previously devised to find our way around the globe proved obsolete, as, unbridled from the Earth, we flew over mountain chains and wide rivers that previously would have stopped us in our tracks. Without roads or rivers to guide us, […]

In a disturbing development in the increased focus on Gustave Whitehead possibly beating the Wright Brothers into the air by more than two years, Flying has learned that a monument to the flying pioneer in Bridgeport, Connecticut, apparently has been vandalized. Early flight enthusiast Andy Kosch heard about the damage and checked it out firsthand: […]

Each of us flies for different reasons. Many pilots started (or continue) as enthusiasts interested in airplanes as recreational machines. Others learned to fly as a prelude to a career in the cockpit. For many, aircraft primarily are a means of transportation for business or personal reasons. In fact, if I did not require an airplane for travel, I would not bother to fly any more. If you seek to use general aviation aircraft for travel, I believe a special approach to safety—implemented through targeted training and consistent flight operations—is required, especially if you are trying to meet any kind of schedule. Unfortunately, our training and operating procedures generally don’t prepare us for these flights. It is possible, however, to achieve high levels of safe utility, even with single-engine piston aircraft, if you employ a few simple techniques to achieve efficiency and reliability while managing risk.

ATIS “Tango” was advertising 43 degrees C when we landed Sunday afternoon. Although I’m “mathematically challenged” I think that works out to about 110 degrees F, which might explain the eerie quiet on the Lunken tower frequency. David Zombek had just flown an outstanding private pilot check ride in the 172. He’d worked long and […]

A new look has been bestowed upon the Memphis Belle (The Movie), the B-17 Flying Fortress used as the platform for the 1990 movie Memphis Belle, a fictionalized depiction of the airplane’s final mission. The B-17 is still in service and is operated by the Liberty Foundation, which uses the airplane to educate the public […]

After Fifi, the world’s only flying B-29, made a precautionary landing at AIRSHO in Midland last October, the big bomber hasn’t made another flight since. The problem, as most of our readers are aware, is that engine maintenance is expensive for all of us. When you factor in the cost of repairing one of the […]

My previous remarks about density versus humidity were not about quantitative calculations of density. I merely presented a simple way of understanding why it is that on a humid day, other factors being equal, we need to anticipate a modest decrease in aircraft performance.

The FAA’s WINGS program has been a key element of joint agency/industry safety education efforts for many years. It is considered gospel among many general aviation safety advocates, and the program has indeed produced positive results. Yet, many are concerned it reaches only a fraction of those pilots who need it, and the positive safety results the program achieves would have resulted anyway because of the safety culture embraced by its current “church-goer” participants.

Volunteers at the Connecticut Air & Space Center museum in Bridgeport have started the process of cleaning and restoring the historic Curtiss Hangar at Sikorsky Memorial Airport. Visited over the years by aviation pioneers including Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes and Igor Sikorsky, the Curtiss Hangar will become a focal point for the museum, […]

The aviation world is mourning the passing of FlightSafety founder and industry luminary Albert Lee Ueltschi, who died yesterday at the age of 95. For many years the personal pilot of Pan Am founder Juan Trippe, Ueltschi is best remembered as the father of modern business aviation training for his pioneering work creating FlightSafety International […]