Murphy’s Law, Occam’s Razor
Ed, an aerospace engineer, and Bill, a 14th Century philosopher, walk into your workshop…and if you’re smart you’ll let them stay and you’ll hear...
Missing Red Bull
Am I alone when saying the Red Bull Air Races were not my ideal of aviation pursuit? I surprise myself a little saying that,...
COVIDity Blues
As I write this, it is the Ides of March in the year that will live in infamy. We are all aviators or we...
What’s Next for Aviation in America? (Hint: No AirVenture)
Never have I wanted a column of mine to become obsolete, inconsequential, a curious blip in time more than this one. In the 30...
Experimental Vs. Certified
As I go through our back issues for our Archive page and relive the world of homebuilding in the 1980s (and, by extension, even...
Go Around
I just returned from my annual airline recurrent AQP, or Advanced Qualification Program, training. (We sure are an industry and avocation of acronyms.) One...
In-Flight Weather: Practice for Survival
This was going to get ugly.
Crossing southern Louisiana in the middle of the afternoon in late May is never pretty. Today was going to...
The One True Airspeed
True airspeed is coy. It hides behind the more obvious speeds who tart themselves up with a meaningless facade. It’s never overt. It makes...
On Getting Dark
Tyrants make memorable flight instructors, a good thing when the lessons being imparted need remembering. And I must say, my primary flight instructor was...
Statistics, Lies and Damn Lies…
Aviation is a numbers game. We fly the airplane by the numbers, we use numbers to navigate and we have to deal with numbers...
In Case You Missed It
Do ADs Apply to Homebuilts? (Part 236)
Last month Kerry Fores’ provocatively titled column, “No One Is Watching” (Building Time, March...
Ask the DAR
Whats changed with the advent of the revised 51% rule? Fortunately, not as much as you might think.
Design Process: Roll Control
The primary function of the wing is to generate lift, but it must also incorporate control surfaces to control the airplane in roll.
