What if a technology designed to save lives quietly became a tool to collect money? Louisiana has just taken a stand—and the rest of the aviation world should be paying attention. For years, ADS-B has been promoted as one of the biggest advances in aviation safety. It allows aircraft to broadcast their precise position, altitude, speed, and direction, giving pilots and air traffic controllers far better situational awareness. It is a safety tool—not a luxury. Now, there is some encouraging news from the United States. Louisiana has officially become the third U.S. state to ban the use of ADS-B flight data for billing aircraft owners. The move follows similar legislation in North Dakota and Montana. The concern is simple: ADS-B was introduced to improve safety, but in some places the same data has started being used to generate landing or airport fees. Many pilots and aviation organizations, including the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), have argued that this creates the w...
I played the jumbo jet flight simulator today and I cleared two rounds. One was the stall and recovery round of the Lockheed Tristar L-1011 airplane. The second was to make an emergency landing after the left elevator malfunctioned. In the stall and recovery training round I put in full power and pitched the airplane up. As a result, the airplane started to lose airspeed. At 160 Knots indicated airspeed the stall horn started shouting, but I held the nose up attitude and the airspeed continued to bleed off. At 130 KIAS I gently released the back elevator pressure and started to pitch the aircraft down gently. I also reduced the throttle initially to reduce the load on the wings and aircraft body. I checked the turn coordinator and made sure the wings were level. All the movements were going in a smooth transition. Within a few seconds, the aircraft had recovered from the stall. The Jumbo Jet Flight Simulator showed that I had cleared this round of stall recovery training. The next...