Remarks

One of the beautiful things about Oshkosh is the self-deception: Stand in the middle of the crowded grounds, teaming with people and aircraft, and you can enjoy the momentary illusion that aviation is actually a popular, well-attended activity.

Theres only one newsprint periodical I still read on real newsprint: The Funny Times. Its mostly a mix of satiric essays and left-leaning political cartoons, but my favorite section is the News of the Weird page. These are real-world news stories collected under sub-headings like Government Inaction and Couldnt Possibly Be True.

One of the beautiful things about Oshkosh is the self-deception: Stand in the middle of the crowded grounds, teaming with people and aircraft, and you can enjoy the momentary illusion that aviation is actually a popular, well-attended activity.

Years ago I was briefly involved in motorcycle road racing. T-shirts with the slogan, Crashing Sucks and a suitable graphic were quite popular. Even then, I thought how appropriate that slogan also was for aviation. Now we find ourselves with back-to-back airliner crashes while landing in visual conditions and Im reminded of just how appropriate that slogan is to aviation. Crashing sucks for all the obvious reasons, but we must also remember that aviation is a…

At my day job flying airliners, I encounter many pilots for whom flying has sadly become a tedious demand, necessary to put bread on...

I just attended the insurance-mandated recurrent training for my C340A that I haven't flown in years. I made my share of mistakes, most of...

Trust me. I'm painfully aware it's July already. And that's really part of the point. I've got to fly more often, something I vowed...

Drawings like this have been "out there" for years, although I'd not seen one until a contributor recently forwarded one to me. This resonates...

The battle has raged a long time between useful, inexpensive, portable, non-certified devices and panel-mount certified instrumentation. In practice, weve long used non-certified portables for navigation and we havent been falling out of sky in swarms.

Most of us learned to fly when the most advanced thing on our panels was a NAV/COM. Perhaps you entered the scene a bit...

The Vietnam War was in full swing when I graduated high school. The economy was in the toilet and airlines were furloughing. There were countless military pilots looking for jobs. It was a terrible time to launch a professional pilot career.

Most of us know that the F in IM SAFE stands for fatigue. Now, fatigue isnt cited as a significant factor in many general aviation accidents, so we must be doing a pretty good job of being properly rested, right?