"The very light jets are almost here, making jet speeds and flight-level performance available to a whole new generation of potential jet pilots," says author Patrick R. Veillette, who studied previous accidents and incidents in the first generation of single-pilot light jets to see what lessons could be learned (see " Turbine Pilot:The Very-Light-Jet Evolution," page 113). Not only do we get a perspective on what caused some of the accident trends, but Veillette also dived further into the data to learn some of the whys of the accidents. This is firsthand information being used by one of the major airline training programs for developing type-rating training programs for VLJs.
When AOPA Pilot Technical Editor Julie K. Boatman received the invitation to visit Moontown Airport in Alabama, airport owner George Myers and airport aficionado Alan Cockrell enticed her with tales of an airport that is "unique, to say the least, and very reminiscent of the 1950s," as Myers puts it (see " Welcome to Moontown," page 98). But what sets the airport apart are the people who gather there. "We were treated like family from the moment we arrived," says Boatman. "And while my husband signed on for the hard duty of giving rides and joining the Flint River Rats for some formation practice, I got down to the business of translating the Moontown story into words and our photographer captured the essence of the place. If you get a chance, stop by this year's fly-in on August 20 and 21. You'll not only get to practice landing on 2,200 feet of grass in front of a discriminating crowd, but you'll also experience some of the warmth and kindness that we did during our visit."
A desert region has been described simply as an area where the annual evaporation exceeds the annual precipitation. "However it's defined, I have always had an inherent love of the desert," says writer Patrick J. Mathews. He took a more active interest in the deserts of the Southwest United States when he moved to California's Coachella Valley. "I found a fascination in its size, extremes of climate, geological splendor, exotic life forms, and the history of how man has survived, even thrived, there," he says. And as an aircraft owner, he found that desert and mountain exploration was made so much easier. "A lot of pilots overfly large desert regions with never a thought of what is below," he says (see " The Sands of Time," page 91).
Back in the 1960s, aircraft manufacturers constantly tweaked their designs, creating multiple airplanes from one basic design. Beechcraft, for example, created dozens of airplane models by raiding the Bonanza parts bin. Did you know that the outer wing panels of the Queen Air, King Air, and early Merlins are Bonanza wings? One of the most obvious and successful Bonanza offspring was the Baron, created in 1961 and still in production today as the Model 58. The DNA of the two models goes beyond appearance — the Baron shares the same sweet flying qualities that make the Bonanza one of the most sought-after airplanes to own. If you need an airborne SUV for your family that's fun to fly, read Peter A. Bedell's " Used-Aircraft Report: The Baby Barons," on page 76.
