On Course

Part of my Thanksgiving weekend was spent renewing my CFI certificate. While it is a bit of a hassle to go through this hoop every couple of years, it is an important task for me regardless of the fact that I don’t do much instructing anymore. I have met several pilots who have let their […]

An aviation rulemaking committee recently concluded there is no justification for a new mandate requiring automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) “In” technology, recommending instead that the FAA promote voluntary equipage for the “foreseeable future.” That’s great news for general aviation, but it doesn’t mean you should cross this game-changing technology off your avionics must-have list. The […]

Sitting in the jump seat of a corporate Gulfstream G450 on approach to Morristown Municipal Airport’s Runway 5, I saw the tiny starlings a fraction of a second before the copilot called out, matter-of-factly, “Birds.” We flew through an entire flock of the little creatures and, although I was pretty sure we’d hit more than […]

None of the pilots I’ve talked to were surprised by Garmin’s decision to discontinue production of its ubiquitous GNS 530W and GNS 430W all-in-one GPS/navcoms (production of the 530 ends this month and the 430 sometime next year). Really, who could be? These hugely successful units have been in production for well over a decade. […]

Laser pointers are fun, aren’t they? We’ve all held or at least seen these pen-sized gadgets. They’re useful for highlighting particularly interesting parts of PowerPoint slides or mounting to rifles and pistols for improved long-distance targeting. I personally am guilty of making cats do burnouts across the kitchen floor with a red laser pen. When […]

What do airplanes and sharks have in common? Maybe not a whole lot at the moment, but that could change – radically so – if aerodynamics research just getting under way at the University of Alabama pays off. Dr. Amy Lang, endowed with a Lindbergh Foundation grant, has launched a study aimed at determining how […]

The Monday launch by Cessna of its Citation Latitude light-midsize jet threw the balance of power in the midsize market into a bit of a tizzy in a number of surprising ways. The airplane at first seems an odd way for Cessna to innovate to win back market share in the light to midsize bizjet […]

Strolling the million or so square feet of exhibit space at the NBAA Convention in Las Vegas, you’d swear you’d stepped into some strange parallel universe where the business aviation industry’s worst-ever downturn simply never happened. The show floor is packed with people and products, business jet makers aren’t skimping on their lavish Vegas exhibits […]

The First Amendment guarantees our right to petition our government. For generations, Americans have used this right to organize around issues they care about, from ending slavery, to guaranteeing a woman’s right to vote, to furthering the civil rights movement. Now, with the rise of the Internet, any citizen can create an online petition in […]

Watch for “corporate jets” to emerge as a hot-button campaign issue in the coming months as Democrats seize on a change in the tax code proposed in President Obama’s Jobs Act to paint their Republican rivals as supporting tax-cheating corporations. It’s happening already. In an ad created for the Congressional campaign of Democrat David Weprin, […]