It all started with a phone call from AOPA colleagues Richard McSpadden and Dave Hirschman one hot, spring day: “Do you know of an A&P that could do a prebuy on a Cessna 170 near Auburn, Alabama?” asked McSpadden.
The dispatcher’s brief text to the Learjet crew holds both unspeakable tragedy and profound hope: “Lung team going to Columbus, Ohio. Takeoff from Allegheny County Airport at 10:15 a.m.”
BasicMed is one of AOPA and general aviation’s greatest achievements in the past several decades. BasicMed has freed many pilots from the cumbersome medical certification process. But despite its potential, BasicMed is still poorly understood.
Pilots are a generous group. Especially during the holidays—no matter how or if you celebrate—pilot groups find a way to spread joy during this season of giving.
GA during World War II. Hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Civil Aeronautics Administration grounded all civilian flying in the United States—17,000 private airplanes and more than 80,000 pilots.
One of the most asked questions about the Annual Triple Tree Fly-In, held in 2023 from September 18 through 24 at the Triple Tree Aerodrome (SC00) in Woodruff, South Carolina, is, “can I land my airplane on the grass runway?” The answer is almost invariably, “yes!”
In June 2023 Ames Municipal Airport (AMW) in Ames, Iowa, was renamed the James Herman Banning Airport after a nationally acclaimed and record-setting local pilot during the Golden Age.
Born and raised in Bentonville, Arkansas, Louise McPhetridge Thaden lived a full life as an air race champion, pioneering aviatrix, and friend and rival of such legends as Amelia Earhart and Pancho Barnes.
Ah, the gift-giving season. The myriad people in your life deserve your attention to their passion, and if their passion is aviation, the AOPA Pilot Gear store is a one-stop North Pole.
“We were just two boys, 17 and 15, flying to California in an airplane built before either of us was born. That summer a reporter would make us briefly famous by writing that we were the youngest aviators ever to fly America coast to coast, but it wasn’t records or fame we were after. What we were really doing was proving ourselves to my father.”
Former NASA scientist Mark Moore doesn’t want to build and sell a new generation airplane. But he does want to sell you on a new propulsion technology that your new generation airplane could have: electric jet engines embedded in your wing.
Bob and Jill are both AOPA members. They pay the same amount of dues each month. But recently Bob noticed that Jill’s AOPA Pilot magazine looked different than his.
The Empire of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, propelled the United States into a conflict that would finally end nearly four years later with the beginning of the atomic age. Now, the site of the surprise attack is a national memorial to the lives lost that day and still an active home to modern warships.
Every year NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, helps raise excitement and anticipation for Christmas morning when it puts its considerable resources to work tracking Santa’s journey for excited kids around the world. The impressive operation began as a fluke.
It was a clear spring day. The weather was perfect, and my family was waiting for me to make the cross-country flight down the coast and through the mountain range from Seattle to central Oregon.
A successful surgeon put his Beechcraft Baron 58 in an Arkansas shop for a makeover. He wanted both engines overhauled, new paint and interior, and the steam gauges replaced with a modern glass panel.
Leaving the hospital with my newborn son years ago is a moment seared in my memory. As I cradled Jack in my arms, the automatic doors swished open, and I felt the warmth of the sun for the first time in three days.
The instrument panels in typical light aircraft today include at least some “glass”: perhaps a pair of Garmin G5s or an Aspen attitude indicator/horizontal situation indicator combination, plus, in an IFR aircraft, a GPS navigator with a moving map.
Oxygen is oxygen is oxygen. There is a lot of misinformation out there about medical oxygen versus aviator breathing oxygen versus industrial-grade welding oxygen, but the bottom line is that is all three are the same.