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Thanks for catching my typo — MSA, not MDA.

" But that's not what I wrote. I wrote that when they just clear you "for the approach" without any other instructions, you can fly the approach any way you want. If they simply clear you direct to the IF, IWP, or IAWP, that's not an approach clearance. If they clear you for the approach via...

Humans don't multitask; we task switch. Flying is about focusing on one thing at a time, but never getting stuck there for more than a few seconds before moving on. That takes practice — no one starts out that way. And it will get even more challenging when you go on to IFR. (Update: reading...

Hate those slicks. When will Big Wind find a way to transport air safely?

You know what doesn't bug me in movies? All the accurate aviation details in The High and the Mighty (1954), starring John Wayne. Ernest Gann wrote the book, based on one of his own experences, and stuck around with the movie to make sure they got it right (John Wayne's first officer even...

Wait until you learn about "bracketing" (no, it's not a medieval torture device). ;)

Sure, but it's energy that would otherwise be lost completely — you can't shut down a nuclear reactor every night when demand falls off. FWIW, fossil fuels are pretty inefficient, too (our ICE engines use <30% of the available energy in the fuel, and just spew the rest out the exhaust).

Yes, very common. With many types of power (e.g. hydroelectric, nuclear, wind) you can't easily turn them down at night during off-peak hours, so you want a way to capture some of that energy and make it available later at the next peak time. Pumping the water uphill with the surplus...

They become Walmart parking lots.

I don't think people are saying that routing would have been wrong. I think it's just that the controller should have been clearer or the pilot should have asked for clarification, either "Five miles from AGNSS; cleared for the XXX approach..." (and maybe a vector, if they wanted the OP to join...

Try saying out loud to yourself "switching to instruments" once you're off the ground, so that it's easier for your brain to make the switch. Picture a loud "Clunk" as you pull the imaginary lever in your brain from outside-reference to instrument-reference.

In Canada, at least, I think you'd have been right — "cleared for the approach" means you can go ahead and fly it by the most expeditious means possible (and, up here, also implies permission to descend to MSA, though I know that's not the case in the U.S.). A new clearance cancels out the old...

The FAQ on the Pipistrel web site states that the batteries passed crashworthiness testing, probably as part of the EASA certification process. You can go there for more details if you're interested.

The annoying thing about airplanes is the low weight limits. That's the difference between a hybrid car or diesel-electric locomotive (or non-nuclear submarine, to give another >100-year-old hybrid-electric example) and a hybrid airplane — we can barely handle the weight of one propulsion...

I think that was definitely true in the 1990s. I think electric cars are probably approaching the break-even point now, and may actually be slightly on the positive side of the ledger soon, especially with the (slight) reduction in coal use for power generation in rich countries, longer battery...

We're not too far apart on this. I believe that battery technology has two doublings left, then it will hit the absolute chemical energy-density wall for a non-consumable power source. That means that we could some day have a plane like the Pipestrel Velis Electro with 6 hours' endurance...

I agree, though I'm probably coming from a different part of the political spectrum. Personal electric cars are bad for the environment; they're usually a bit less bad than ICE cars, but they're not actually good, especially if you live in a country like the United States or China that still...

I wouldn't do that at this point in market maturity, because I wouldn't want to surrender so much of my control and equity. I'd try to limit myself to bootstrapping and angel investors. VC's are useful only when you need huge sums of money to scale up fast, but there's no big market to scale up...

A 100 hp recip weighs close to 200 lb, IIRC. The batteries in the Pipistrel weigh 300 lb and go up to a bit under 90 hp for 1½ hours (probably not at full power the whole time), while that 100 hp engine will need 100–150 lb of avgas to run for any amount of time. I'm sure engineers will figure...

Absolutely. They have a while before they'll be ready to cross the chasm to the early majority on the Rogers innovation adoption curve. Most of the adapters right now well either be enthusiastic experimenters, or people with special needs that they can't meet any other way (for example, cutting...