General aviation airports are my happy place. There’s no denying that. Often I stop into my hangar just to sit peacefully in the usually quiet confines of the non-towered airport environment I call home. Sometimes a friend drops by to pass the time of day, or share an interesting tidbit of information, or ask for […]
Politics for Pilots
An excellent depiction of when the everyman went to war
Today, as has been the case since the birth of aviation, there are a fair number of celebrity pilots. It’s only natural I suppose. At their core, celebrities are ordinary people, driven by many of the same dreams as anyone else. For actors, they make it their profession to represent the rest of us in […]
Getting the word out in a big way
This past week my Sunday paper included a story you would have enjoyed. The photos were of three young women, each standing proudly beside an airplane. Two were beside a Piper Cub, while the third leaned casually against a Cessna 150. One is a CFI, the other two are high school students who just happen […]
Finding safety, longevity, and diversity in numbers
Living beings have a strong tendency to travel in packs, schools, prides, pods, or convocations. Whether they find a home in the sea, on the land, or in the air, living in a congregation is the norm more often than not. Even early humans lived and travelled in tribes for very good reason. This propensity […]
Are you experienced?
It’s been said for many years the private pilot certificate is a license to learn. The underlying intent of the statement holds that with a private pilot certificate we have the freedom to get out and fly, to gain experience, and through that experience we might become better pilots. That was the idea, anyway. In […]
Full Stop: An attitude check
When I was a kid, I had big dreams. Really big dreams. If you’re the kind of person who regularly reads General Aviation News, you probably did too. For years I thought I might play in the NFL. That was until I played freshman football in high school. At a diminutive 4’ 11” and well […]
Flying Clubs and FBOs: A match made in heaven
Not long ago Hurricane Hermine blew through Florida. This was a Category 1 hurricane. A relative pip-squeak on the spectrum of deadly storms. Relative in that it did result in a fatality, but for most of those affected it caused little more than an occasional tree blocking a road, stray limbs littering the yard, and […]
Let’s not go flying
I came to flying later than many. In part because I was sort of a hippie kid more attracted to the idea of playing guitar professionally than suiting up as a member of the military. And while those two paths might not seem mutually exclusive today, in the Viet Nam era they were often thought […]
Big dreams can come true
With enough imagination, dedication, perseverance, and help it’s possible to do almost anything. If you doubt me, consider that human beings designed, built, tested, refined, rebuilt, and flew rockets that landed us on the moon – and we did all that in an amazingly tight timespan of only nine years. As I said, you can do […]