Adventures & More

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(June 2011) I recently asked FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt about the tough time that applicants have been having on FAA Knowledge Testing (the tests that many of us still refer to as the “writtens”). Many test takers are failing the tests because the FAA has included a lot of new, previously unpublished questions that are […]

(June 2011) “Shortly after takeoff, I knew we were in trouble — everything looked, acted and sounded OK, but I watched the vertical speed indicator drop to zero. Knowing we had taken off from a strip located down in a mountain valley, that’s not a good thing. It was just after dusk, so I couldn’t […]

This year’s Paris Air Show is shaping up to be one of the biggest ever as the beleaguered aerospace and defense industries look to rebound after 2009’s running of the international air salon came up far short in terms of orders booked and deals announced.** ** Highlights at the show, which runs June 20 to […]

General aviation has a lot of good things going for it. Airplanes have gotten more capable, and wonderful avionics improvements have come along to give us amazing inflight information and make flying much more fun. But these good things tend to be overshadowed by a particularly large dark cloud. In an increasingly risk-averse and litigious […]

(June 2011) In the February issue, Robert Goyer reported on a project to convert Cessna Skyhawks to electric power. Many Skyhawks are used as trainers, and training flights seldom last more than 90 minutes; so batteries, though notoriously lacking in stamina, might be an adequate power source for this application. Parenthetically, Robert mentioned that wingtip […]

(May 2011) I HAD COMMUTED INTO JFK from my home in Florida with plenty of time to spare before my late evening trip to São Paulo. As I opened the door to Operations and walked past the revision room, Rocco Zavaglia was engaged in the mundane chore of wrestling Jeppesen paper in and out of […]

(May 2011) DID THE EARTH MOVE for you? Good. Me too. After 28 years of taxiing out to runway 36R at Tampa International Airport, where I have based an airplane since moving here, I am now instructed to taxi out to 01R. After all those years of thinking of my home airport as an elegant […]

(May 2011) SEVERAL YEARS AGO I WAS flying with the family back to Westchester County Airport (KHPN) from Syracuse, New York, where we’d spent the Thanksgiving holiday with family. The forecast wasn’t great, but it was easy IFR, if indeed there is such a thing. White Plains was forecast to be 800 feet and 1½ […]

(May 2011) DID WE ACTUALLY MAKE a better pilot out of anybody, save any lives or keep any bent airplanes from littering the landscape? Who knows, but we sure had a good time putting on Wings Weekend at Hogan Field or, more properly, Butler County Regional Airport in Hamilton, Ohio. It started with me (and […]