John King

John King started King Schools Inc., with his wife, Martha, in a spare bedroom of their home. Today, the school operates out of a dedicated complex in San Diego, California, that includes a video and software production facility. John and Martha have shared flying and teaching aviation for more than 50 years.
John King Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Traveling Solo in Style

“You don’t know how other people live,” my brother said. He was not technically correct. We do know how other people live; we just don’t live that way. We were not exactly sure what he meant. There are a lot of things we don’t do like other people do—for instance, we certainly aren’t stylish dressers. […]

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John King Thursday, February 4, 2021

Why Pilots Must Demonstrate Risk Management

You can imagine our deep sense of grief when occasionally we’d return to a city on our ground-school circuit and someone would say, “Did you hear about Bill?” “No,” we’d say, “what happened to Bill?” They would then explain the aircraft crash that had killed Bill. It happened all too often. We began to realize […]

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John King Thursday, October 1, 2020

Flight Deck Scripts for Life

PM: “Making power, power is even.” PM: “Airspeed alive.” PM: “80 knots.” PF: “My yoke.” PM: “Your yoke.” PM: “V<sub>1</sub>.” PM: “V<sub>R</sub>.” PM: “Positive rate on two.” PF: “Gear up.” PM: “Selecting gear up.” PM: “Gear is up.” PM: “Clean wing speed.” PF: “Clean the wing.” PM: “Cleaning the wing.” PM: “Wing is clean.” PM: […]

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John King Thursday, April 23, 2020

Sky Kings: The March of Avionics Technology

My instructor was in the seat behind me. He was always yelling at me. This time, he was yelling that I needed more rudder when I used aileron. I was a teenager. I thought he was mad at me. I know now he was just trying to be heard over the ambient airplane noise. The […]

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John King Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Chief Pilots & Aircraft Owners

The relationship between the chief pilot and the principal is extraordinary. Like our entrepreneur friend, Bill Cook, and his chief pilot, Bob Harbstreit, people in this relationship become mutually entwined. They develop very respectful and trusting relationships. I know of no parallel relationship outside of aviation. It is not unusual for entrepreneurs to fly as […]

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John King Monday, July 22, 2019

Not Your Father’s Commercial Certificate

The instrument rating requirement for commercial pilots created a hullabaloo in Juneau, Alaska, that was just an early episode in the ongoing dialog about the qualifications a commercial pilot should have. For the commercial seaplane pilots in the area, it was unhappy times. The FAA had just mandated that all commercial pilots must have an […]

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John King Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Why Notams are Garbage

“That’s what notams are. They are just a bunch of garbage that nobody pays any attention to.” It would be a dramatic statement regardless of who said it. But this was Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, speaking at a hearing. Sumwalt had reason to be upset. An Air Canada jetliner had […]

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