Dan Pimentel

New eight-seat design will feature a full airframe parachute safety system.
Aside from the eventual day when Bye Aerospace announces that they have received FAA certification for their eFlyer 2 all-electric two-seat training aircraft, the release of details about their eFlyer 800 twin-engine turboprop-class all-electric model now in development may be the most significant news to come out of the Colorado-based company to date.
The eight-seat all-electric twin-turboprop class eFlyer 800 is bei...

Trading was paused twice on first day because of extreme volatility.
On Wednesday, July 14, Wheels Up became listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) after announcing that it has officially closed a “business combination” transaction with Aspirational Consumer Lifestyle Corp., a Cayman Islands exempted special purpose acquisition company. First day trading on the NYSE was strong for what is now known officially as Wheels Up Experience (NYSE: UP) when it saw volume of 6,953,356 shares chan...

As a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the United States Air Force’s most senior uniformed officer, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. is responsible for the organization, training and equipping of 689,000 active-duty National Guard, Reserve and civilian forces serving in the US and overseas. A military adviser to the secretary of defense, Security Council and president, Gen. Brown is the kind of a leader that knows true leadership is much more than just giving orders.
Throughout his career, Bro...

Fixed-wing and rotor-wing aircraft are flying on fires in California, Oregon and Washington.
As if 2020 had not dealt the United States enough grief so far this year, a disastrous late summer wildfire season on the West Coast in California, Oregon, and Washington has scorched millions of acres and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses. Heroic ground crews are working numerous fires right now, saving structures and lives. Their work is being supported from the air by a large fleet of sta...

Imagine this scenario: You jump in your family airplane and depart into a clear blue sky. You’d have to stay aloft for 4.25 years to match the 37,200 hours in flight instructor Field Morey’s logbook. And you’d have to seek out the worst weather along the way to experience what Field has flown through in the almost six decades he’s been teaching his fortunate students to fly on instruments.
Field comes from one of aviation’s well-known families. His father, Howard Morey, was born in 1903, the ...

A few years ago, I strolled a back alley in Volterra, Italy, and stumbled upon a cluttered workshop where craftsmen were sculpting large chunks of alabaster into gorgeous works of art. Every surface wore a light coating of fine alabaster dust probably dating back to the 16th century. The worn hand tools and the techniques the artisans were using looked as if they had been passed down through the generations—relics from a time when the elders taught their children the family trade and those ch...

New eight-seat design will feature a full airframe parachute safety system.
Aside from the eventual day when Bye Aerospace announces that they have received FAA certification for their eFlyer 2 all-electric two-seat training aircraft, the release of details about their eFlyer 800 twin-engine turboprop-class all-electric model now in development may be the most significant news to come out of the Colorado-based company to date.
The eight-seat all-electric twin-turboprop class eFlyer 800 is bei...

Back in 1997, Steve Jobs challenged the world to “Think Different,” as he and his team of engineers invented a line of desktop computers that turned the industry on its head. Jobs was not only an engineer, he was a visionary, able to marry his intense quest for innovation with forward-thinking creativity. Great engineers can do that.

For so many reading this profile, “giving back” through some form of philanthropic flying is a big part of why we fly. To see the smile on a child’s face when a rescued puppy is delivered to its forever family, or taking a person up for their first taste of what our world of flight is like is one of the most rewarding experiences a pilot can enjoy.

Flying may be a dream you’ve had since childhood, or maybe it represents a new challenge later in life waiting to be conquered. You know it will be exhilarating to enjoy the freedom general aviation will give you, but you may think the cost of such freedom is out of reach.

A Fact Sheet released recently by the FAA lists several National Transportation Safety Board safety recommendations, followed by the FAA actions being taken or considered. Of note is the record showing that NTSB and FAA “agree on a course of action about 80 percent of the time.”

While studying meteorology at the University of Hawaii in the 1970s, Cyndhi Berwyn began flying gliders. In her senior year, the US Air Force decided to allow women to become pilots in the service. After she competed for a slot and was selected as one of the first women in that program, she became an Air Force instructor, flying T-37s and T-38s. Her career made a roaring start.

During her Air Force years, Berwyn continued to build general aviation experience by flying hot air balloons, seapla...

Flying aerobatics is hard work. If you doubt it, watch Sean D. Tucker flying his famous Centrifuge maneuver in his Pitts-based Challenger III. Diving for the ground, he pitches up hard and starts a series of gyroscopic, sustained nose-over-tail tumbles in an arc past show center. As he continues flipping his biplane past the audience, the blood in his body alternates rapidly between being sucked toward his feet and being jammed back into his brain. “It’s the toughest 20 seconds of my act,” says Tucker. “If you are not in shape, that’s when you can black out.”

Anyone who knows the airline industry will agree that it faces one pressing and indisputable issue: High-seniority pilots from the regional airlines are being recruited by the major carriers to crew growing fleets, creating an acute shortage of qualified pilots coming into the regional airline system as first officers.

The flying Franklins started with Kyle’s grandfather, Oliver Gene “Zip” Franklin, who bought a 1929 Doyle Special at the age of 16. The eldest Franklin mainly used airplanes as farm equipment to fly between two family ranches, and he had his son Jimmy with him in the cockpit while still in diapers before the lad learned to fly — at only 8 years old.