General aviation isn’t dying, it’s just changing. To successfully navigate this major transition, we need to face up to some critical issues, like avgas, NextGen and certification. We also need to look in the mirror.
Articles By: John Zimmerman
A revolution in remanufactured airplanes
Have we seen the last clean sheet piston airplane? It’s a fair question given the current state of new airplane sales. But a handful of new companies may point to an alternative–remanufactured airplanes that are as good as new ones for half the price.
The Hungry Pilot: Airport Cafe, Urbana, Ohio
With this article we are launching our latest feature, called simply “The Hungry Pilot.” We’ll highlight the best airport restaurants, from small town diners right on the runway to five star establishments within walking distance of an airport. As usual with Air Facts, we want to hear from you, too.
Fly safely – think like a golfer
At first glance, flying small airplanes and chasing a tiny white ball around a golf course seem like completely different activities. But while the stakes are certainly higher in aviation–nobody ever died from a bogey–I think there’s a lot for pilots to learn from elite golfers.
Safety: our greatest challenge
Pilots spend an awful lot of time talking about safety, and we’re no exception here at Air Facts. Some readers have suggested we actually do it too much–quit the morbid talk about crashes and promote the positives in aviation, they say. Are we really overdoing it?
Weather.aero – a valuable new aviation weather website
Imagine a weather website just for pilots with a variety of useful tools and some nice graphical weather charts. Imagine this website is free and provided by the US government. Now imagine (most shocking of all) that this website is actually attractive, well-designed and easy to use. It’s here.
Why do we still run out of gas?
We stink at fuel management. The latest evidence? On January 23, a Cirrus SR20 crashed a few miles short of the runway in Danbury, Connecticut and made national headlines for its colorful parachute getting caught in power lines. Surely a plane as advanced as this one couldn’t just run out of fuel.
Abandoned airfields: history in our midst
We all know that airports are disappearing at a depressing rate. But they are not forgotten, thanks to the heroic efforts of Paul Freeman and his fascinating website: Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields. This hidden gem offers history and pictures for over 1600 airports that are still among us, but no longer on the sectional.
LP approaches – coming soon to a GPS near you
Remember LP approaches? Last year we shed some light on these obscure but increasingly common instrument approaches, which are part LPV and part LNAV. At the time, this was mostly an academic conversation–nobody could actually fly an LP approach. But that’s about to change.
ADS-B 101: what it is and why you should care
In an industry famous for its ridiculous acronyms, ADS-B stands out for being uniquely confusing. Everybody uses the term, but few really know what it means. So what is ADS-B? Why should you care about it? Can you just ignore it? No.
7 good things about general aviation
Pilots are famous for being passionate about flying, but they’re also famous for being pessimistic about flying. Call me hopelessly naive, but I think there is still a lot to be thankful for as pilots. With that in mind, I’d like to offer seven good things about general aviation right now.
8 SOPs for instrument flying
Do you fly with SOPs? Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are commonly used in the corporate and airline flying world, as a way of formalizing the do’s and don’ts of a flight department, but they can be very useful for private pilots, too. Here are eight SOPs I follow when I fly IFR.
The sorry state of weather training
It’s become fashionable to complain about the lack of stick and rudder training today–just tune into our long-running debate about stall training if you don’t believe me. But before we run off and mandate 100 hours of taildragger training for every pilot, we should look at the numbers.
10 great online weather tools you may not know about
For true weather geeks, a pre-flight weather briefing can be a lot of fun, not just a requirement to be completed as quickly as possible. Everyone has their list of favorite weather sites, but here is my top 10 list of useful weather websites that aren’t as well known as they should be.
The Great Debate: are straight-in approaches OK?
The vast majority of airports in the United States (some 20,000) have no control tower, a fact that shocks many non-pilots. But the traffic pattern at these airports usually operates quite smoothly, with pilots flying prescribed routes and announcing their positions on CTAF. But do you have to fly the classic four leg pattern?
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