AVweb Insider

What is it about me that makes officials I’ve never met ask if I’m human? More intrusively, they don’t merely enquire if I identify as homo sapiens but, instead, demand that I prove that I’m not a cyber-blooded aero-other—a robot. I refer here to the demeaning process many suffer when attempting to achieve any level […]

Rochelle P. Walensky is twisting her pearls on national television and as surely as I-4 was a parking lot last Saturday, I am setting myself up here. I am going to Sun ‘n Fun. I have reviewed all the data, not that there is much worthy of the label, and have made a carefully calculated […]

In my long and hardly illustrious flying career, I have been ramp checked twice and busted once. The bust occurred on a Part 135 charter on a busy summer day in ritzy Southampton, New York, where I was supposed to be flying rich people from Kennedy airport to their tony beach houses on Peconic Bay. […]

This article’s title would’ve been killer material in the third grade, and since pilots never grow up, let’s consider what is barely whispered in polite aviation society: Slips. Forward or side, the terms are casually interchanged while illustrating uncoordinated maneuvers with ambiguous hand gestures that compound uncertainty. So, after decades of teaching them, I’m determined […]

Every year in the U.S., there are between 200 and 250 fatal aircraft crashes totaling about 400 or so deaths. Four to six a week. These numbers are so predictable and so utterly ordinary that we rarely cover them on AVweb. Not to be too cynical about it, but fatal accidents are the unfortunate normal […]

The recent Kobe Bryant accident in low-visibility conditions and the many others like it always elicit comments similar to, “What is a helicopter doing flying in IFR weather like that?” The short answer is because they can. Flippant, but true. By and large, fixed-wing aircraft are stable platforms. Trim them up, release the controls, and they […]

The hurling of metaphorical spitballs being part of the job description, opinion writers can’t resist comparisons. Here’s a topical one: Which is bolder, Elon Musk’s proposal to launch humans to Mars or Apollo 8? It’s an easy answer and I picked 8 not 11 for a reason. SpaceX’s high-altitude tests of its Starship Mars rocket […]

The promise of a guilt-free flying machine in every pot seems to be, if not on hold, at least in the waiting room skimming back issues of Aviation Consumer while hoping for a callback. Might be a long wait. Still, I’m optimistic, and as Ludditely-inclined as I am, I would love to fly an electric […]

I don’t know about you, but I’m not in the mood. And I get less in the mood every day. The mood I feel slipping away is the slightest tolerance for passengers who misbehave on commercial airline flights. Misbehave is too generous. More like act like complete, flaming ^%$#@&. You’ll certainly know I’m referring to […]

I found him standing in mud up to his shins, cussing out loud, the inglorious result of walking backward into a soggy tobacco field to get just the right angle for a shot. We had both arrived at a country intersection, the scene of a car accident. I was a volunteer for our local rescue […]