The promises were thrilling. Thousands of small jets zig-zagging around the country, with their low acquisition and operating costs bringing charter flying to the masses and making private aviation accessible to millions more people. Then certification and production stumbles turned thousands into about 200-plus, and no charter revolution. No matter, say the owners. The promises are real.
For more than 45 years, beachgoers in Ocean City, Maryland, have celebrated the end of the summer season with Sunfest, a four-day festival featuring arts and crafts, music, beach activities, and food on the inlet parking lot at the start of the resort town’s three-mile-long boardwalk.
When I was a child, every now and then my mom would bring home a balsawood airplane from the grocery store. They had a red propeller, rubber band, about four parts, and cost about $1.
Marrying into an aviation family has taught me two things: everything is always subject to change, and I should never get attached to any certain airplane. The first point might be true for most aviation families, but the second point is a little more unique.
The passports of Stephen and Heather Rider’s children, all three under 10 years old, are filled with names of destinations most people will never see in a lifetime. In a family with a foot in two worlds, it’s not unexpected.
Classic Cubs might all be yellow, but with growing options for paint and wraps, more and more people are looking to set their airplanes apart from the outside in.
Nearly 150 students, teachers, and other aspiring pilots were awarded funds that will help them pursue their dreams for a future in the aviation industry.
Hearing the North American B–25 ‘Panchito’ roar to life is an unforgettable experience, yet the sound—powerful as it is—pales in the presence of a small wristwatch connected to this aircraft in a round-about way.
It was middle of July 2015. My wife and I had just moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, and I had taken a job flying a fleet of Beechcraft King Airs for a small charter company. On this occasion I was flying an older model King Air 200 on a one-hour Part 135 charter flight from Jackson, Mississippi, to Little Rock.
Corey owns a 1978 Beechcraft Bonanza A36 and is very involved in its maintenance. He does his own oil changes and other preventive maintenance. He even bought his own borescope and uses it to keep tabs on the health of his airplane’s cylinders. He’s my kind of aircraft owner.
Recently I enjoyed dinner with friends who were excited to take their first flight in a general aviation airplane with me the next morning. Kelli and Melissa peppered me with questions like, “How will we get permission to take off?”
The message left on my phone was terse: “I need to get you to sign off my flight review; looks like I’m due this month.” It was typical of the let’s-get-this-over-with requests I’ve been regularly receiving as a flight instructor since November 1, 1973. That was the target date set by a revision to FAR Part 61 50 years ago, when flight reviews were initiated as an every-two-years ritual.
The electronic horizontal situation indicators (EHSI) in today’s primary flight displays (PFD) include a navigation indicator that can instantly improve your situational awareness and help you quickly comply with ATC clearances, which otherwise might require editing the current flight plan or switching the GPS to OBS mode.
The first clue that this isn’t an ordinary Cessna 182 Skylane is the right-side door. The door opens vertically against the wing—not horizontally. After unlatching it at precisely 80 miles per hour, the slipstream holds it up.
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.