Not too many people except for professional musicians remember Les Paul and even most pickers recall him best as the man who pretty much invented, developed, perfected and popularized the electric guitar. (Many guitarists also remember Paul's wizardry at winding up ultra-hot induction coils that no one else has ever been able to match.) Not as well remembered is the fact that Les Paul, who turns 93 in June, also invented -- or at least commercially tamed -- multi-track recording and that he was arguably one of the greatest guitarists, regardless of type, who ever lived and the only guitarist who ever lived to earn two Grammys at the age of 90. ...More.
Do it yourself air travel. Sounds good doesn't it. Wiggling your head into that well-used, sun-bleached-leather Red Baron helmet, lowering the goggles, pushing the spark advance button, gesturing for your field mechanic to spin the prop, listening for someone to bellow "clear," releasing the brake and slowly rolling down a beautiful green grassy strip toward the wide blue yonder. ...More.
With oil prices nearing $110 a barrel as of early March, 2008, it's reasonable to ask which segments of the passenger air transportation industry will be hardest hit by the inevitable avgas price hikes -- scheduled airlines, charter companies, or VLJ air-taxi services. Though actual numbers are impossible to calculate because of the effect of gross weight, speed, wind and a dozen or so other factors on fuel flow, the simple answer is probably this: If every carrier filled every available seat on every possible flight, the net effect of skyrocketing fuel costs would probably be about the same for all of them.
ImagineAir is not your typical air-taxi-next-door outfit. Headquartered about 20 minutes down I-85 from us at Gwinnett County Airport in Atlanta's southeast suburbs it is one of our air-taxi carriers next door, but that doesn't make it the least bit typical.
Founded in 2004 and sending its first flights skyward just one year ago, ImagineAir already offers Eclipse 500 VLJ and/or piston-engined Cirrus SR22 point-to-point, fly-on-demand service to 600-plus airports throughout the Southeast .
It was probably inevitable that the first Very Light Jet to circumnavigate the globe was a Cessna. Every bit as important to general aviation progress as Boeing, for example, is in the world of passenger aircraft, Wichita-based Cessna Aircraft Company.
There are taxicabs and there are limousines. According to Microsoft Encarta, taxicab companies provide vehicles and drivers available for hire on short notice and offer service that is "more flexible than other forms of public transportation such as buses, subways, and streetcars that have fixed routes."
Talk about an unusual career path. Joe Leader started studying the Very Light Jet revolution for his doctoral thesis and wound up founding and becoming president of the industry’s first trade group, the Atlanta-based Air Taxi Association.
