We talk with the Editor-in-Chief of Plane & Pilot about changes to the magazine, drones interfering with airliners, the impact of lower airline fees on customers, an Airbus assembled in the USA, and blocking flight tracking.

Guest

Robert Goyer is VP, Editor-in-Chief, at Plane & Pilot magazine. He’s an award winning aviation editor, journalist and photographer. For more than two decades he’s been documenting the world of personal aviation in words and photography.

We talk with Robert about changes to the magazine and website since its purchase by Madavor Media in 2015. That includes expanding the target audience to include serious transportation pilots, bringing in new writers and rotating columnists, a focus on photography, and a weekly email newsletter.

Robert tells us, “I started flying before I remember flying, heading up with my dad in a little red-and-white Aeronca Champ from a cozy little grass strip in New England, and after a few years we graduated to a beautiful Cessna 195 that our family rebuilt together in the big barn out back.

Today, Robert does most of his flying in the system, filing IFR and flying on business and personal travel in high-performance piston singles up through light jets. He’s type rated in the Cessna 525 CitationJet and has plans to add a couple of new type ratings in the coming year, though he admits he has his eye on an old Super Cub he says has his “name written all over it.”

Find Plane & Pilot online at their website, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

News

Lufthansa jet and drone nearly collide near LAX

The pilot of a Lufthansa A380 at 5,000 feet and 14 miles from Los Angeles International Airport says a drone passed close to the plane. The FAA is reported to say the drone flew 200 over the Airbus.

Surprise! Lower Airline Fees Would Be Bad for Customers

If enacted, the FAIR Fees Act introduced by two U.S. Senators would require that airline fees be set commensurate with the cost of the services provided. The Motley Fool says, “regulating airline fees would not be good for most travelers in the long run.”

Airbus plants seeds of a new aerospace cluster in the U.S.

An A321 destined for JetBlue should be making its maiden flight this week. The significant aspect is that the airplane is American-made at the new $600 million Airbus final-assembly plant in Mobile, Alabama. Most are describing this as Airbus’ beachhead in the U.S.Five other A321s are in final assembly for American Airlines.

Flight-tracking Blocking Efforts Under Way

The FAA has a program to block certain information about aircraft flying in U.S. national airspace, but it relies on a process where those providing flight-tracking services agree to block flight information when requested by operators. In return, the flight-tracking companies get access to the FAA’s ASDI data feed. But It’s not difficult receive broadcasts from mode-S transponders and ADS-B out transmitters.

Thousands of people run PiAware on a Raspberry Pi to receive ADS-B transmissions and forward that to FlightAware. The ADS-B Exchange website bills itself as “the World's largest co-op of unfiltered flight data.”

The Airplane of the Week

David was given the opportunity to help 8th grader Jonah from Northern California with his paper on aircraft of World War II.  Jonah mentioned attending Oshkosh and noted that his favorite airplane was the Spartan Executive. In David’s opinion, Jonah has class and good taste so the Spartan Executive is the airplane of the week.

Mentioned

The Boeing 777 Thrust Asymmetry Compensation (TAC)

Boeing’s New Airplane Toilet and Bathroom Will Kill Humans’ Germs

Airlander 10: New pictures of world's longest aircraft

Credit

Opening music courtesy Brother Love from his Album Of The Year CD. Outtro by Bruno Misonne from The Sound of Flaps.

Source

Original post: Airplane Geeks #394.