This series will draw metaphors from the famous Greek mythological story of Icarus.   If you are unfamiliar; Icarus’ father (Daedalus) was an amazing craftsman who built his son a pair of wings made of wax and feathers. Against his father’s guidance he flew too close to the sun and melted his wings, crashing to his…

In this editorial I will attempt to juxtapose two different genre of aviators. Both are similar, yet different. Let me also say there is no right answer.   Many would think that pilots are a very structured species that goes out to the same kinds of airports and flies similar types of aircraft on comparable…

There are some interesting phenomena that occur when pilots of similar types of aircraft coalesce into a group. Some of it is really good and some of it is not so good. But let’s examine an often taboo subject and see where it leads us.   I’ll use the term type club because that’s how…

In the spirit of the Holidays this month’s Blogging in Formation (#blogformation) series will cover What We Want Under our Christmas Tree. Based on the picture above, you might get the impression I want to give up our airplanes for flying saucers, not really.   What I do want is a revolutionary, game-changing, paradigm-shifting, alternative to…

  Knowing how and when to unload the wing can save your hide.  You can stop reading there. The remainder of this post will only seek to emphasize that not-so-subtle point.   If you are confused or curious keep reading.   Airplanes are fantastically designed machines. They seek equilibrium in virtually all states, alter their…

Well it was bound to happen. I had started with a pretty clean website and gradually over time it became a little (or a lot) cluttered. As someone that fancies themselves a purist, particular when it comes to visual things, it was starting to grate on me.  To make matters worse, my friend Ron Rapp…

So those of you that have been reading this site know I have a strong predilection to gawking at used aircraft classifieds. Besides various writing ventures, this might be my #1 pastime when I’m not actually flying.   In the past there have been a couple of primary classified sites that I frequent and the rest…

You might note that I have written about UAVs on several occasions, usually in vain. Let me say for the record that UAVs (or Remotely Piloted Aircraft – RPAs) are great use of technology, particularly in the military.  But…   Ok, I was listening to an interview recently and they were talking about UAVs/RPAs and…

I having been working hard for the last several months to get this ebook completed  (I actually like to think of it as a guide). It is almost across the finish line and I’m really happy with how it turned out thus far. Credit goes to several folks for their contributions: Eric Auxier of Cap’n Aux.com, Ron…

This is my humble contribution to the blogging in formation series.  Inspired by the video that I will link to at the end of this post, I wanted to summarize this incredible story of aerial courage and daring. After the United States entered the European theatre, it would have been a strange sight indeed to see…