YOU CAN'T PUT A LABEL ON EAA

None of us want to be labeled. Yes, we all have our professional skills, our favorite activities, personal beliefs, and attitudes about everything from what we eat to where we live. But slap a label on us, and we are confined. A label puts one in a pigeonhole unable to grow and change and, well, experiment.

No matter how hard we try to avoid being labeled, others will insist. And that's an issue I see for us EAAers. The aviation world has put a label on EAA and many have stuck us in that pigeonhole, and that is something we can't allow to happen.

EAA was founded 60 years ago by people who wanted to build their own airplanes. The very first homebuilts were air racers and aerobatic airplanes, even though we called it acrobatics back then. They were single-seaters with a very limited mission.

But almost immediately Steve Wittman designed the Tailwind, an adaptation of his famous racing airplanes. The Tailwind could carry a passenger, so among its many capabilities was the option for speedy travel. Suddenly EAA was expanding from single-purpose homebuilts into personal air travel. And the EAA expansion continues to this day.

...So what is EAA?

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PODCAST: PELTON TALKS EAA AFTER HIGHTOWER
Russ Niles interviewed EAA interim president Jack Pelton about the direction of the association following the resignation of Rod Hightower. According to Pelton, EAA is "the only true association out there that truly represents all aspects of general aviation and recreational flying." This is how he thinks that association should behave. More...

AUTOMATING WEATHER

Properly managing risk is essential to successfully pursuing life's more exciting adventures. Activities such as scuba diving, downhill skiing, motorcycling, mountaineering and, of course, flying, all entail elements of risk which we must consider and manage if the thrills we seek are to be experienced more than once. But risk management often is poorly understood: While most people believe themselves to be prudent, the reality is large risks are often ignored and minor dangers grossly exaggerated. In general aviation, our inability to assess risk properly is evidenced by the number of weather-related accidents consistently gracing NTSB logs, even in the face of widely available near-real-time meteorological data on the ground and in the cockpit. Given the proliferation of automated weather data in recent years, the opposite should be occurring.

Automated weather first came on the scene in the late 1980s and readers might remember a raging debate about human versus mechanical observers. That debate seems silly in retrospect, but a more immediate concern is that pilots seem unwilling or unable to process and assess accurate weather data, no matter the source. We shouldn't be concerned about the automated systems' accuracy but with our apparent willingness to ignore automated, real-time weather observations and/or misinterpret forecasts. Perhaps a reasonable explanation is automated weather reports are sometimes disregarded because the technology is still mistrusted. With that in mind, a brief history of automated weather observing systems is in order, along with a primer on how to use them today.

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PODCAST: THINK FLYING'S TOO EXPENSIVE? LISTEN HERE BEFORE YOU COMPLAIN
Just back from Europe and tamping down jet lag, correspondent Paul Bertorelli recorded this podcast with fliegermagazin's Thomas Borchert during the Aero show in Friedrichshafen. Before you complain about user fees or regulations in the U.S., listen to what Thomas has to say about flying in Europe. Yet still, pilots there persevere, $13 dollar avgas and approach fees be damned. More...

AVWEB INSIDER BLOG: AERODIESELS -- PROGRESS, BUT NOT THRIVING
The aerodiesel market appears to exist in a parallel universe to LSAs: making progress but not setting sales records. At Aero Friedrichshafen, Paul Bertorelli encountered a couple of new entries to the market, but he also noted some that have shown up in the past were MIA. He shares his observations on the AVweb Insider blog. Read more and join the conversation. More...

MEET THE AVWEBFLASH TEAM

AVwebFlash is a twice-weekly summary of the latest news, articles, products, features, and events featured on AVweb, the world's premier independent aviation news resource.

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Paul Bertorelli

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