If you want someone to hear your message, you have to get that person within earshot. At shows like AirVenture, placing an attractive airplane in your display area often does the trick. It helps if you can get your hands on a vintage airplane, because there is something about those older models that make aviators […]
Changing the world — one plane at a time
If you eat, sleep and breathe aviation — especially its history — then you will enjoy “50 Aircraft That Changed the World,” a coffee-table book from Ron Dick and Dan Patterson. It chronicles some of the technological marvels of aviation, starting with the Wright brothers’ 1905 Flyer, through the two World Wars, through the development […]
Take a guided tour through GA’s most popular high-performance planes
There comes a time in every pilot’s life when he or she has the urge to fly — and later buys — an aircraft with retractable landing gear. The pilot who is serious about the experience would do well to read “Flying the Light Retractables,” by LeRoy Cook. The 130-page book contains information about a […]
Cessna pursues purchase of Columbia
Cessna Aircraft Co. has signed a Letter of Intent with Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing Corp. to acquire selected assets and certain liabilities of the Bend, Ore.-based aircraft manufacturer. Cessna Chairman, President and CEO Jack J. Pelton noted that “Columbia’s unique capability in the high-end single-engine piston market makes it a perfect complement to our Next Generation […]
Fossett presumed dead
The search for missing aviator Steve Fossett in the Nevada desert has been scaled back, while the preliminary report from the NTSB lists the accident as a fatality. Fossett disappeared Sept. 3 while flying near Yerington, Nev. He took off in a Bellanca Super Decathlon for what was supposed to be a three-hour flight, but […]
California city considers closing one airport to grow another
At the end of World War II the city of Tracy, Calif., picked up two former military airfields as war surplus. When Uncle Sam deeded the properties to the city, which is about 60 miles east of San Francisco, there were restrictions that the airports remain airports in perpetuity. However, city officials are now asking […]
New GA terminal on tap for New Bern, N.C.
Spring will bring a new general aviation facility to Craven Regional Airport (EWN) in New Bern, North Carolina. The bid for construction of the 4,000-square-foot general aviation terminal was recently awarded to local contractor Brydge and Lee Inc. The facility will house FBO Tidewater Air Services, Inc. “The new facility will be twice the size […]
Jacksonville repeals ordinance that bans homebuilding
Education and persistence have paid off for members of the Experimental Aircraft Association in Jacksonville, Fla. For more than a year, EAA members have been fighting a city ordinance that prohibited the parking, storing, repairing, building and operating of aircraft and airboats in residential neighborhoods. On Sept. 25 the City Council voted to repeal the […]
Do clothes make the controller?
“Cessna 123, cleared for takeoff, runway 13L.” Do you really care what the person issuing the instructions is wearing? I don’t. But apparently the FAA does. All across the country air traffic controllers are being disciplined for dress code violations. Some of the male controllers have rebelled by wearing dresses. Given the problems the FAA […]