The management team at PilotMag is pleased to inform you that Jeff Berlin has been named as their new Editor, effective immediately. Jeff comes to PilotMag with a depth of print industry experience that includes a period as editor of Plane & Pilot and Pilot Journal magazines. During his tenure at Plane & Pilot, the audited newsstand circulation grew by 24%. Before working at Werner Publishing, Jeff contributed as a writer to magazines including AOPA Pilot, Private Pilot, Private Air, Aerokurier, and Aviation et Pilote.

A pilot since 1994, Jeff is multiengine and instrument rated, has flown a multitude of aircraft ranging from ultralights and LSA’s to cabin-class turboprops and jets. He enjoys keeping an eye on how technology impacts the flying experience and has a particular affinity for aviation history. He feels that today’s pilots shouldn’t forget those that came before them.

Jeff is also a widely published fashion and portrait photographer. For five years he lived and worked in Paris, France and Milan, Italy, and his work still appears in numerous editions of domestic and international magazines. He has shot for Vogue Italia, Esquire, L’Oreal, Wella, Estée Lauder, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Maxim, Teen magazine, In Style, and Condé Nast Brides, to name a few.

Based in Los Angeles, when Jeff’s not writing, editing, and tooling around in the Cirrus he most often flies, he will continue to shoot celebrity portraits, beauty and fashion. Many of you worked with Jeff in his previous position at Plane & Pilot; he now looks forward to working with you in his new gig at PilotMag. Please add him to your press distribution list at Jeff@PilotMag.com

PilotMag celebrates its second year as aviation’s adventure publisher. To date, December 2009, PilotMag has launched a bi-monthly magazine, a social networking site and is currently building a video production facility to bring our readers, advertisers and viewers some of the best aviation adventures on the planet. The PilotMag team has worked incredibly hard over the last two years to introduce an aviation brand for the future. We are breaking down airport gates to get to the people of this amazing community. Our editorial mission is “people first, equipment second". We want to introduce ourselves to as many aviators as we can and illustrate their love an desire for this discipline. At the 2009 EAA AirVenture Airshow in OshKosh, Pilotmag’s staff celebrated our anniversary by hosting The 2009 PilotMag Bash where we brought together aviation leaders, business owners, and all of our vendors to say thank you for their support. So, keep an eye out for PilotMag as we cruise into our second year of exciting and compelling aviation stories. From the PilotMag staff and all of our contributors, thank you for your support and encouragement as we take the this community by storm.

Over the last year, Pilotmag has had the opportunity to work with some of the most talented and creative group of contributors. We are so grateful for their amazing stories, their jaw dropping photographs and, most importantly, their patience as our brand continues to permeate the community of aviation. Our contributors are our eyes and ears, bolding going where we sometimes can’t. Without the assistance of these creative individuals, PilotMag couldn’t bring you the best in aviation adventure, and we look forward to future adventures in coming issues. See who PilotMag is working with.

We are also seeking your adventure flying stories, exciting destinations, pilot profiles, and contributions as well. So please send your story, photo or video ideas to editorial@pilotmag.com today!

PilotMag has posted a new media. Here is a chance for your company to reach a high-income pilot across various marketing mediums. Advertise with PilotMag for a fraction of the cost of other aviation magazines. Our advertising sales approach is simple. Create a well-rounded campaign in all print, online and video properties. Also, if your business employs some of the most impressive aviation professionals, we want to profile them. Click here to download the PilotMag Media Kit

Have a great idea for a feature story? Would you like to publish one of your adventure stories in PilotMag? PilotMag is presenting an opportunity for our readers to see your work in print! We are seeking adventure flying stories, exciting destinations and pilots to profile in upcoming issues of PilotMag. Send your story ideas to editorial@pilotmag.com today.

What a week it was. The Blue Angels Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron blasted their way into the National Air Race Championships this year in Reno. Having not demonstrated the F-18 Hornets since 2000, the squadron and their staff of over 150 individuals provided a show that undoubtedly blew the socks off of every patron and reminded all of us the sound of freedom and that nothing ever good happens without hard work.

After each demonstration flight throughout the country, each Blue Angel pilot has the opportunity to “meet and greet” with the crowd, signing autographs and shaking hands. Amazed by their success and skills at operating these incredible aircraft, the crowd is wooed by their aviation prowess. However, as we looked closer at the operation, we wanted to find the individuals that weren’t in the spotlight. We wanted to find those that worked behind the scenes to make this show so impressive; those that didn’t have their time in the spotlight.

PilotMag had the opportunity to get up close and personal with the dedicated staff and support team of this amazing squadron. Up early on Sunday morning during the show, before the sun broke through, we met up with 7 GEEK, one of the squadron’s work centers, as they ran through a litany of pre-flight inspections and system checks as patrons of the 2009 Reno Air Races still enjoyed a Sunday morning slumber. 7 GEEK, who we met a few nights before at the gym, was a collection of polite, mannerly individuals who were more than happy to accommodate our interest in what they do. In fact, they were excited that we even took notice to what their contributions were. They invited us out to observe their system checks and various duties to ready the aircraft for the day’s event. After speaking with Travis Simpson, Life Support and Crew Chief, PilotMag was provided an all access pass to photograph the pre-flight operation and meet some of the people involved on the ground.

Over 110 enlisted and career oriented Navy and Marine Corp maintenance and support team volunteers, chosen by their peers, are the back bone to this group demonstrating at over 35 different locations per year throughout the United States and across the globe. All of these Sailor and Marine enlisted applicants come recommended for Blue Angels duty by their current commanding officer and their peers. Applicants go through extensive screening, including interviews with current members. The selection process secures the squadron’s tradition of excellence, ensuring the Blue Angels are a direct reflection of the professionalism of today’s Sailors and Marines. After completing a Blue Angels tour, team members return to the fleet and continue their naval careers.

Although every team member brings skills in a distinct job specialty, each is expected to work beyond that specialty, contributing to the overall effectiveness of the squadron. The squadron consists of 15 distinct work centers, jointly responsible for guaranteeing command readiness. A testament to the hard work and attentiveness of each and every maintenance and support individual, the Blue Angels has never once cancelled an air show due to a maintenance problem.

Since the F-18 Super Hornet is the Navy’s newest and combat ready strike fighter, each work center and Crew Chief are tasked with maintaining the active electronically scanned area (AESA) radar, the advanced targeting forward looking infrared (ATFLIR), the joint-helmet mounted cueing system (JHMCS), the multifunctional information distribution system, and much much more. The aircraft’s 5th generation aerodynamic design gives the Super Hornet (F/A-18E/F) exceptional combat maneuverability, unlimited angle of attack, high resistance to spin and departures and the ease of handling and training. With a dedicated staff and these technological advancements, the Super Hornet remains combat relevant well into the 21st century.

What we found after our visit with these talented individuals is that they have worked hard to earn a spot on the Blue Angels team, they have been hand selected by their peers and commanding officers, and they are driven to be the best. As you watch this staff working on the ramp, they carry a sense of purpose and a distinctive goal of success. This impressive group should not be overlooked and everyone should remember that even know the pilots are the one’s putting on the aerial show, there are people like Travis Simpson and 109 others that make these shows happen. PilotMag was honored to witness their duties and educate all aviation enthusiasts that the pilots aren’t the only ones putting on the show.

Thanks to everyone from 7 GEEK for allowing us the opportunity to see the Blue Angels up close and personal. The day hadn’t even begun, however it was a chance of a lifetime.

PilotMag was a proud sponsor of the National Aviation Heritage Invitational at the 2009 Reno Air Races. Over 30 vintage aircraft were on display to be judged by an expert panel of aircraft judges for aircraft authenticity as well as a people's choice award that was voted by patrons of the event. Gates L. Scott, the publisher of PilotMag was on hand to handout The Orville and Wilbur Award along with pilots Patty Wagstaff, Hoot Gibson and Bob Hoover at his side to the lucky winner of this year's event.

The vision and mission of the National Aviation Heritage Invitational is to encourage the preservation of aviation history through the restoration of vintage aircraft to original flying condition via friendly competition, bringing valuable aviation treasures together in one venue. It is extremely important that PilotMag aligns themselves with the vintage aircraft community to preserve the history and majesty of flight. In order to stimulate change and participation in aviation, PilotMag continues to support these types of events to send a message of partnership and community development.

We encourage vintage aircraft owners to get involved in this excellent event. If you would like to enter your vintage aircraft in next year’s event, you can visit the National Aviation Heritage Invitational

September 17th, 2009

In Response to Thomas Frank's Cover Story in the USA Today "Little-used Airports cost taxpayers Big Money"

This is a response and an objection to Thomas Frank’s cover story in the today’s USA Today. With obvious bias and a blatant pitch for major airlines, Mr. Frank’s front page story “Little Used Airports Cost Taxpayers Big Money”, positioned back to back with a story in the paper’s Money section by Dan Reed called “United Makeover Aims to Refresh and Renew”, is a complete defamation and direct insult to municipalities and authorities, business owners and entrepreneurs who operate and support general aviation airports, and to the countless pilots and aircraft owners that create jobs and economic stability to many communities around this country. With such a biased stance, the USA Today has made it very clear that today’s journalistic integrity crosses a fine line between delivering the facts and publishing propaganda to bolster a commercial airline industry that has created its own problems.

The news media has continued to follow fiscal spending by the government with an irresponsible speculation attempting to garner advertising pages and additional readership all at the cost of someone's else career and livelihood. Members of Congress, The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the EAA and websites like PilotMag.com have continually justified spending at general aviation for such services as search and rescue operations, air-medical transport and, most importantly, new job creation and economic development. However with sensationalism and negative commentary, all in the name of a “tough economic time”, the USA Today has gone too far and attacked a group that is vital to the very growth of the industry it is so obviously trying to protect; the airlines. Who do you think will be flying the commercial airliner 737s or Dash 8s in 20 years? Where do you think these pilots will get trained?

You guessed it. Small, unknown airports. These airports receive needed FAA and Federal funding to train countless, future pilots and provide maintenance and training facilities that feed the industry as a whole. These airports and the individuals that work in the system will end up being the ones that fly your family to Orlando for vacation or safely repair the aircraft that carries you to that bachelor party in Las Vegas.

How far will a biased media go?

Now, we all know that Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and his crew did an incredible job by evaluating options quickly to put that Airbus A320 into the Hudson River. It was, for once, a favorable end to what could have been the worst aviation accident in American history - at least according to the American and international media. Sullenberger and his crew have been commended for their regimented safety and simulator training and the strength to get that flight down safely. His safe return to the Hudson is the epitome of sophisticated aviation training that our industry brings to the flying public. Without the foundation of general aviation and “little, used airports”, this accident could have concluded much differently. But when the praise is over, and Sullenberger becomes a recent memory of the collective media-viewing population, will the media just move on to the next disaster, leaving our un-educated, non-aviation population to conjecture their own opinion on the safety and economic impact of general and commercial aviation?

Availability Heuristic

Because we remember the most recent experiences or reports, the news media has a significant effect on our decisions and understanding. Various factors can affect availability. Things which are easy to imagine, or those that are very vivid, make themselves more available. Things that are uncomfortable or not as vivid can push people into denial, making these thoughts unavailable. Availability Heuristic is the theory that a judgment is made based on what we remember, rather than complete data. It’s the vividness, or lack thereof, of the event that molds our decisions. Frank’s report doesn’t even mention how much of the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program (AIP) money is spent at air carrier airports. Or the fact that in a typical year, Congress allocated $3 for air carrier airport improvements to every $1 to be spent at general aviation airports. The availability and priming of this type of news propaganda, and the increasing accessibility of this misinformation, is what makes our non-aviation population believe the government is over spending and the USA Today has perpetuated this "oversight hysteria". These are people’s careers, trade and entrepreneurship that are stake here.

As the age of current airline and commuter airline pilots creep toward the inevitable retirement age of 65, large airports and their commercial carriers won’t have any customers at all if the media continues to attack general aviation airports. The FAA has merely put a bandaid on a problem that will most likely come back to haunt every airline traveler. As these pilots retire, who will fill their seat? The military isn’t producing enough pilots to fill them. They are training fewer and keeping them. Unlike after World War II, The Korean War or Vietnam, our military has not been able to keep up with the shortage of pilots that currently exists in this country. And, now the USA Today feels that attacking general aviation will help bolster the future of major airlines? Quite the contrary.

Frank is quoted in the cover story as saying that “Commercial travelers subsidize many airports they never use”… and the CEO of The Air Transport Association was quoted as saying “The passengers who fly on airlines are paying for projects at airports where we don’t fly.” What the USA Today and the Air Transport Association are not telling the general public is that recurrent training programs and simulator training, required for Airline Transport Pilots like Chesley Sullenburger, is conducted in general aviation communities. I would think if the travelling public had a better understanding of these training facilities and the jobs they create, they would make a trade off for additional taxes knowing that their captain on a recent flight was up to recurrent training standards.

Also, has this cover story really provided all of the necessary facts to properly understand the flow of government dollars to this industry? Let’s take a look. The FAA distributed $3.34 billion in Airport Improvement Program funds to 2,610 airports nationwide. And, here is the real story of the FAA Airport Improvement Program: 341 primary airports—airports with more than 100,000 passenger boardings each year—received $2.1 billion in AIP funds. That’s an average of $6.17 million per airport. 48 commercial service airports—airports with between 2,500 and 100,000 passenger boardings—received $93 million, or an average of $1.94 million per airport. 139 GA reliever airports received $214 million, or an average of $1.54 million. 982 GA airports received $617 million, or an average of $628,000. Combined, the 389 airline airports divvied up $2,199,335,046, averaging $5.5 million per airport. The 1,121 GA airports shared $831,717,227, averaging $741,942. An addition, $310 million was distributed through state block grant programs. Do you see an uneven or weighted balance to suggest that the FAA is misdirecting funds to support our “Little Used Airports”?

The facts don’t lie. However, this article is a direct misrepresentation of the facts and a sensationalist attempt to create false, public conceptions on general aviation, all the while destroying jobs, careers and and training that are vital to the success of group you are so obviously trying to support. You may have won some CEO’s support at major airlines, however you have duped your readership with misinformation and coercion. I expect better from the largest circulated newspaper in the country.

Subscribe to PilotMag for more of the story.

PilotMag had the opportunity to fly with the Mighty Waco for our July/August feature. Enjoy some video on the most amazing biplane on the planet. Video footage courtesy of Waco Classic. Check out PilotMag's Video with The Mighty Waco

Micah Ciampa of PilotMag spent a week with the pilots and ground crew of The F-104 Starfighters Demo Team at the Kennedy Space Center for our feature in the July/August issue. Check out PilotMag's Video with The Working Warbird or “The Missile with a Man in It! Video footage courtesy of Starfighters.

PilotMag traveled to the desert, of all places, to fly seaplanes. Along with Site Six Productions, PilotMag shot some air-to-air footage of the canyons, lakes and mountains along Lake Havasu. Flying seaplanes in the desert. What a trip! Check out PilotMag's Seaplane Video

Recently, I had the opportunity to fly the foothills of Colorado on a beautiful April morning to a 1800 acres ranch west of Castle Rock, at the infamous Elephant Rock. In an effort to be philanthropic as well as a good environmental steward, I sent out an email message to the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts (CCLT) to marketing my skills as a pilot and donate survey flights for the various easements in the state. I figured we could survey properties twice as fast from the air than on the ground. It would also lead me to interesting places in the state to land and fly. (Totally selfish reasons, really)

The Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts is the collective voice for land conservation in Colorado. They spread my message to land trusts and local government open space programs which have collectively protected over 2 million acres of Colorado’s wildlife habitat, working farms and ranches, and significant natural landscapes, that I was available to help in any way I could. One of the members of CCLT, Colorado Opens Lands has sent Gates L. Scott, the publisher of PilotMag out on various mission surveys taking photographs. Together PilotMag and Colorado Open Lands were able to monitor 12 easements in 2008 and over 6 already this year. We are able to monitor over eight easements in one short morning flight, and saving Colorado Open Lands a great deal of resources when monitoring it from the ground”, says Mo Ewing, Director of Land Stewardship, Colorado Open Lands. In their latest newsletter, they sent out “A Big Thank You…”

PilotMag is dedicated to being a better environmental steward in Colorado. Check out our video with Colorado Open Lands PilotMag’s Conservancy Flight

PilotLounge makes a visit to one of the largest seaplane bases in the United States. Come meet some of the employees and pilots of this incredible landmark of aviation. Check out PilotMag's Video with Kenmore Air

Learning how to fly is an experience best shared. This is the principle philosophy for Able Flight, an incorporated 501 c3 organization whose mission is to offer people with disabilities a unique way to challenge themselves through flight training and, by doing so, gain greater self-confidence and self-reliance. Based in Dumbarton, North Carolina, Able Flight has designed a scholarship program for aspiring pilots with disabilities to pursue the experience. For somebody with a disability to even consider flight training, there are a host of challenges. The process can be daunting, but Able Flight supports many aspiring pilots and provides countless resources for the achievement of their goals. Please visit Able Flight today to help support their cause or direct someone you know to help in their search for flight.

PilotMag has teamed up with American Web in Denver to print the most responsible and eco-friendly product possible. PilotMag takes environmental concerns very seriously by promoting the development of alternate fuels for aircraft and utilizing recycled materials for the production of our magazine. The Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI®) label is a sign you are buying wood and paper products from well-managed forests, backed by a rigorous, third-party certification audit. Learn more about how SFI Inc. is improving sustainable forest management in North America and supporting responsible procurement globally. Visit the SFI Program's Website for more information.

PilotMag’s publisher Gates L. Scott and Associate Editor, Jack Ferguson host the PilotMag Podcast from the PilotLounge.com studios at Centennial Airport outside of Denver, Colorado. Check out the PilotMag Podcast