Disney may not have intended to instigate domestic strife with the release of the trailer for its new animated feature, Planes, but I can tell that the sparks are going to fly around my house.  There they are, all those pretty little airplanes, soaring in time with the swelling chords of the music while cars and trucks with their anthropomorphized windshield-framed eyes remain solidly earth-bound. My son, Sam, writes about (ho hum) cars.  My husband Jim and middle son Sam, are auto writers, gear heads through and through. As I have complained in a previous post, neither one of them can hold a conversation outdoors without stopping mid sentence to… Read More…

Patty Wagstaff provided photo  When she wows crowds on the air show circuit, pilot Patty Wagstaff often pulls her airplane nose high. But when it comes to her personal interactions, she is a down-to-earth, everywoman. The 61 year-old, air acrobat’s appearance at New York’s Wings Club was one of the more glamorous events held by this group of international aviation executives – even without the black tie and spangly dresses that are required for the annual gala in the fall. On Wednesday night, Wagstaff was dressed in low-key white button down blouse and (waaay less low-key) black leather pants to accept the Outstanding Aviator Award given by… Read More…

Boston Logan knows how to display airliners One can’t be immersed in aviation without forming all sorts of opinions about its impact.  How one defines the reason for aviation can be roughly categorized. The Air Transport Action Group tallies it up in a report called Aviation Benefits Beyond the Borders, a study industry groups like International Air Transport Association will surely use to lobby governments to be more like partners and less like adversaries.   Fifteen hundred airlines worldwide, 24 thousand airplanes, $2.2 trillion (yep, with a T) in economic benefits; those are big numbers that sure get my attention, though it’s less certain if presenting facts to busybody lawmakers will convince… Read More…

Photo courtesy Greenfield District Court This afternoon, 57-year old Steven Fay will appear in court in Massachusetts to face criminal charges for being supremely stupid, recklessly stupid, deadly stupid. In what some aviation attorneys say is extremely unusual, a private pilot has been indicted for involuntary manslaughter for unintentionally crashing his airplane and killing his daughter. Charging a grief-stricken man who has lost his child seems on the surface to be a step-too-far.  Further, criminalization of error – including suspicion of bad decision making – is highly controversial and rarely practiced here in the United States though it is a different story in other countries. In… Read More…

If you are operating under the impression that air show megastar Sean Tucker confines his fancy maneuvers to his airplane, I’m here to tell you, he does not. Yesterday at the NTSB hearing in Washington, I watched him dazzle a panel of hardened air safety investigators looking into ways to improve air show and air race safety. “It’s not basket weaving 101”, he said, all gosh, shucks and boyish charm and the five board members from Mark Rosekind on the left to Earl Weener on the right practically cooed. But Tucker has a point. In a demonstration of courage and cojones, he was one of… Read More…

CRAZY STUFF! Despite scarey decompressions, a you-can-not-make-this-up event on a commuter flight to New York, the inexplicable but global trend of attacking pilots with lasers, an elevation of rhetoric in politics and in aviation and some truely appalling carrying-on by air travelers who really should know better (Gerard! Alec! Leisha! what got into you?) aviation was blessed this year with many, many happy landings. SAFE FLIGHTS! Let’s start with the publication of the International Air Transport Association‘s new statistics that show commercial aviation around the world has never been safer. Statistics being slippery, I don’t normally tout this kind of thing, but Gunther Matschnigg IATA’s… Read More…

One never knows when a good story will result in a tip that leads to another and this week I’ve had a double dose.  After writing on my travel blog GO HOW about how arbitrary the decisionmaking can be when it comes to removing passengers from airplanes, I received accounts from three separate sources that just baffle me. Saying that his recent removal from a Finnair flight was embarrassing (I have no doubt) business class passenger – let’s call him Hannu – had to purchase another ticket and was not reimbursed for his original fare of €2800. I wasn’t there and I don’t know Hannu,… Read More…

A sky as blue as one found in a child’s storybook greeted the New York City area after Hurricane Irene, but missing from the picture early this morning was the normally ubiquitous presence of airplanes. To people living in this region – home to three major commercial airports and four major airports for business, charter and general aviation – the last time aviation shut down to this extent was September 11, 2001. Sure, Irene had the airlines cancelling thousands of flights – running 24/7 they’ve got experience and manpower to handle it. (See this spooky shot of JFK Airport from Frank Van Haste‘s blog here.)… Read More…

Some of  America’s most active business airports would be – should be, having one of their most active weekends on this, the last weekend before the Labor Day holiday. Instead they look like this desolate scene at Westchester County Airport in White Plains, New York. In anticipation of Hurricane Irene, Westchester, Republic and Teterboro are reporting airfields that have become ghost towns. My friend, Chuck Allen, a pilot and member of the Westchester Flying Club spend part of Saturday afternoon watching a lot of takeoffs…and no landings…as people moved their airplanes out of the path of the hurricane. “When it comes to weather, pilots usually… Read More…