Is this country great or what? I can rent a 30-foot-long CruiseAmerica.com motorhome, with no prior large vehicle experience, load it with six of my friends and family, and plow on down the road. The company website is filled with ways to maximize the enjoyment of the rental, and very little about safety and regulation. […]
Touch & Go
The show must go on
GUEST EDITORIAL By PHILIP HANDLEMAN Sequestration is forcing the Pentagon to slash $41 billion this year on top of the $487 billion reduction in defense spending already mandated over the next 10 years. Resultantly, a cruel triage within the Defense Department has taken hold. Communities across America are waking to the reality that their scheduled […]
The new FAA: Nimble
[Start sarcasm]: The FAA has seen the light. With its budget challenged by sequestration, FAA brass came up with a “pay for play” program to extort — er… I mean bill — the nation’s fly-ins for traffic control. This is a great thing. You see, FAA leadership has realized now what uncertainty means. So in the future, when ICON […]
Apparently we do need this tower
The “Reducing Flight Delays Act of 2013” (H.R. 1765) was introduced on Friday, April 26, by Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa). It was signed by President Obama on Wednesday, May 1. You see, Congress and the President can get things done…when they want to. The full title of the bill is “To provide the Secretary of Transportation with […]
An open letter to the FAA administrator: How can we help?
A third-class medical exemption for pilots operating four-seat, 180-hp (or less) aircraft in daytime, VFR conditions probably is not a high priority item for FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. Can you really blame him? But it is to me, and no doubt a great many current, and potential, recreational pilots. So…Michael — can I call you […]
30,000 drones by 2020
There can be little doubt that UAVs are coming to U.S. airspace in significant numbers. The best we pilots can do is stay informed and engaged in the process.
Do we need this control tower?
There is a lot of chatter about the pending tower closures. Yet I don’t hear anyone asking, “Do we need this control tower?” Immediately after the FAA released its tower closure list, the newly elected Congressman from my district, Denny Heck, issued a press release regarding Olympia Regional (OLM) and Tacoma Narrows (TIW) airports: “This […]
The 11-year itch…scratched
When I left for the office on a recent Friday, my oldest daughter, 13-year-old Savannah, gave me an extra tight hug. She knew I would be out at Pierce County Airport (PLU) in the late morning to regain my currency so I could take her… and myself… flying. She was very excited. The last logged […]
Double lung transplant survivor earns Private
“Well, I am now a real private pilot, as of yesterday,” noted an email I received this morning from Jennifer Julian. If you don’t recall, I wrote about Jennifer last May. She survived a double lung transplant, earned her 3rd class medical, and was an active student pilot. She’s now a certificated pilot. Jennifer is a woman who […]