My wife completed her Ph.D. in May and now has a part-time faculty position at Purdue. This semester she's teaching the Aviation...

The best part is watching students. http://lairds.us/Kyler/photos/disk0026/img_2097.jpg/image_viewer (If I knew a way to prevent this from becoming a high-wing/low-wing thread I would do it.) --kyler

I've been asked to help write some code to assist in flight planning by choosing routes. I have just enough Computer Science and IFR background to make me dangerous. I said that I'd donate my effort if it results in Free code the community can use. So we're making this a community...

It's been months since I got a good set of sectional raster DVDs from the FAA. For a couple cycles a Miami image was missing georeferencing data. That was fixed but then the current set I received had a bad (East) disk. So I called to see if I could get another. They didn't have any extra disks...

I hate software patents. They *really* burn me when they're on things that I've already discussed and planned to do. Here's one. http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/323-full.html#188748 Any GPS can tell you where you are but Control Vision's Anywhere Map system tells you where you...

I just saw a clip on the local news about a single-engine turboprop that landed on a Highway 933 in Roselawn yesterday after having engine problems. It looks like it might be a PC-12. It's N922RG. It was going from South Bend Regional, IN to White Plains, NY with five people on board. They were...

I submitted a form for some information from the FAA awhile back. As I recall, I received a response only by telephone. Today I received some spam ("Cialis - No prescription needed!") to the address I gave in that form. Tough to tell exactly what happened but I'm curious if anyone else has...

I just got this in an investor update from Borealis. ************************* Missing pilot and plane We are delighted to report that the plane and the pilot were found. Dave is fine; the plane crashed and is probably a total loss as a wing broke off, possibly from wind sheer. Dave was flying...

....how about some cookies for dessert? http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/0804CarCookies04-ON.html --kyler

Thanks to Dennis Megary at MyAirplane.com, I've added the vector (PDF) approach plates to my collection. http://aviationtoolbox.org/raw_data/FAA/approaches/ There's a lot that I plan to do with these, but for now I have a terribly simple kludge for finding them...

I see that the Fairey Rotodyne had a max. gross weight of over 32,000 pounds. The only gyro in which I have time was close to 2% of that weight. It's been years since I've been to a PRA fly-in, but I only recall seeing *little* (two-person max.) aircraft - much lighter than the 5200 pound...

Anyone know where to get the boundaries for sectionals? (I want to be able to determine which sectionals contain a given point.) Thank you. --kyler

For the past few weeks, I've been obsessed with manipulating the newly- available (from the FAA) raster sectional images. This is all new to me so I've just been banging out code trying to get something reasonable. The code is *horrible* and I don't recommend it as anything beyond an example of...

I've posted lots of messages about how much my wife and I appreciate our Bose headsets, followed by several about how my wife's headset became unusable after an upgrade (and a couple of attempts to fix it). Now I get to go back to praising Bose. I just got off the phone with Joe Tesini of Bose...

It looks like the BLM has a shapefile for all of the TFRs but they only share it with "BLM members who are logged in". http://airspace.blm.gov/mapping/blm/tutorial.html Anyone know of another source for this information? (I'd also like to hear why they're restricting access to this.) Thank...

I think about flying to Cuba every so often. This week, while registering for class, I noticed a flyer about a Maymester course in...

I received some helpful e-mail that pointed out that the NED elevations *are* orthometric (NAVD88). That's good to know and certainly simplifies my life, but it doesn't explain some of the big (over 400') differences I have observed. Back to the data... First I eliminated facilities in Hawaii...

In another thread, I asked if the FAA keeps track of FBOs. I decided to submit that question to the FAA. I received a timely and complete response. You asked if FAA maintains a list of fixed base operators for each airport. The FAA does not. You need to contact the individual airports for...

Right after I got my AMEL (and before I was flying our Aztec), I rented a Seneca and took my family to 2I3. http://lairds.org/Kyler/photos/disk0005/img19.jpg/image_viewer As I recall, we got there at the tail end of lunch but still ate something and then headed right home. It wasn't a big...

I'm interested in knowing how important the availability of WiFi access to the Internet is when pilots choose an FBO. Is it enough of a benefit to really affect your choice, or is it just one more thing that is nice to have. If it affects your choice, is it enough to make you select one FBO over...