The use of helicopters in the U.S. Air Force predates the Air Force as a separate service. In World War II, limited numbers of Sikorsky R-4s flew for the Army Air Forces. But with the separation of the Air Force from the Army in 1947, both branches of the military coveted helicopters to do certain […]
Opinion
The flip side of Sinek
In 2009 a not particularly well-known Simon Sinek stood up at a TEDx event in Puget Sound and dropped a new way of thinking on his audience. Simon postulated that greatness in any industry, with any new product or service, starts with the founder and their team knowing why they do what they do, and […]
From limits, the freedom to fly
“It’s amazing. If this thing didn’t have all these limiters on it, I would’ve taken it up to 500′ and just flown back to the strip,” said Casey Neistat. “I felt that confident.” Who is Casey Neistat and what is he talking about? Casey Neistat is a YouTuber, among other things. He makes wildly popular […]
Eche la Culpa
Presidential TFRs are complicated. These flight restrictions are temporary and, often, the boundaries keep moving. Furthermore, they can occur without warning anytime a president decides to travel. They are kind of like pop-up summer thunderstorms. They’re avoidable, but a pilot sometimes has to use every available resource to avoid them. A search of NASA’s Aviation Safety […]
An apology to the US Sport Aviation Expo, and you
This may come as a surprise to some readers, but occasionally, I am mistaken. In error. Out to lunch. Wrong. This is one of those times. For nearly 15 years I’ve been attending and writing about the US Sport Aviation Expo, which takes place each January in Sebring, Florida. It’s one of my favorite shows. […]
Go ahead and ignore that FAA email
Is the Federal Aviation Authority (yep, you read that correctly) trying to connect with you? After all, they’re trying to connect with me. Check out the following screenshot of an email that just arrived to my inbox. While I’m not an email expert, I feel pretty confident that I can ignore this email from the […]
Video: One of us has to fly this airplane…
When I was 15 years old I was approximately as smart as a sweet potato. That’s not flattering, but it bears a reasonable resemblance to the truth. What’s worse is that the sweet potato was in general more useful than I was. You can ask my mom. Even as kind and generous as she is, […]
A drool-worthy collection of LSA seaplanes
For an aviation buff, the month of April is something like being a kid in a candy store.
Sal’s back — let’s celebrate
Something happened over this past weekend that could be seen in one of two ways. It was either a perfectly ordinary event that is hardly worthy of notice to anyone but those directly involved, or it was a remarkable achievement deserving of applause. I’ll let you decide. The story involves my friend who, for the […]