Search Results for: wright

The pine trees in south Georgia sure grow tall. This was the singular thought that kept racing through my mind as we blasted across the open peanut field at 145 miles per hour five feet off the ground before pitching up at the last instant to skim over the tops of the 90-foot-tall trees, missing […]

EAA founder and chairman emeritus Paul H. Poberezny turned 91 on Sept. 14, celebrating nearly six decades with the organization that has helped introduce millions of people to the wonders of aviation. Dozens of fans have posted well wishes on EAA’s Facebook page over the last few days, many of them keying in on Poberezny’s […]

As we continue to ponder what we’ll fill our gas tanks with in the future – Diesel? Biofuel? Maybe even plastic, as one intrepid Cessna 182 pilot hopes to do soon – it’s pretty interesting to look back through aviation history and realize that even early pioneers sought out alternatives to the gasoline internal combustion […]

With the possible exception of a hot-air balloon, no matter what kind of aircraft you fly—airplane, glider, helicopter or blimp—it has an undercarriage of some sort, used when it’s on the ground. The component(s) actually resting on the ground can be tires, skids, floats or skis, but they’re attached to the airframe via the undercarriage. In turn, the undercarriage can be fixed, retractable or a mix (e.g., the main gear retracts while the tailwheel doesn’t). And just as there are a seemingly endless number of airframe configurations, undercarriages come in many different flavors.

In the wake of our publication of the Top 100 Airplanes of all time, a number of Flying readers have shared their thoughts on which aircraft top their best-of-all-time list. Take a look at the overall most popular Top 10 aircraft reader picks, and check out some of the interesting lists we recently received below. […]

Rubidoux, California, located in Riverside County, is nestled in the Jurupa Valley between the Santa Ana River and the Santa Ana Mountains. This fertile valley is known for its citrus, as one of the first areas in eastern California to be settled by Europeans and more recently, as the birthplace of baseball’s infamous Barry Bonds. […]

Ray Bradbury, a writer whose science fiction novels were loved by many aviators, has died at the age of 91. Bradbury received many awards during his long writing career, including the National Medal of Arts in 2004 and the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation in 2007. Bradbury published nearly 50 books, hundreds of short stories and […]

This Memorial Day weekend was my most special one to date. While I didn’t celebrate it the way it was intended – in remembrance of the members of our Armed Forces who gave their lives to protect our freedom – I had a chance to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, […]

It really only takes three things to make our piston engines go: air, fuel and, of course, a spark to set things burning and those pistons churning. We, the pilots, are responsible for making sure our engines have enough fuel to mix with air (and enough air, for that matter) to make it all burn. We pretty much know where the air and fuel come from, but what about that spark? The answer is an engineering marvel, but an ancient one. As pilots in the 21st century, more than 100 (nearly 110!) years after the invention of the first flying aircraft engine, we rely, amazingly, on nearly the same technology to generate spark today as did the Wright Brothers.

In this article, I will ask readers to suspend disbelief until you have read the article completely. I am sure you will have your own opinions, about both the article and my own motivation in writing it. I believe, however, that most of you will appreciate the message I am trying to convey and that you will also observe how the stakeholders in aviation safety may be approaching the subject in completely different ways. The key questions are not only about how effective they are individually but how they can remain complementary.