Jay Hopkins

It was a routine flight in every way. A University of North Dakota flight instructor took off from Grand Forks, North Dakota, at 5:45 p.m. with a private pilot who was in the university’s commercial/instrument flight program, for a three-leg, cross-country night flight in a twin-engine Piper PA-44-180 Seminole. It was a clear night with […]

Most pilots like to think they do pretty well at the whole flying thing. In fact, surveys show that overall most people rate themselves as above average in performance. This is obviously impossible, as half of all pilots would have their performance rated as less than average. In his new book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell looks […]

The importance of careful flight planning is drummed into our heads from our first flight. The very first regulation in FAR 91, Subpart B, on Flight Rules (91.103) states that “each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight.” It then continues with a list of […]

Like anyone else I am concerned about the high cost of avgas, so I decided to see how long I could fly on the least amount of gas. I managed to fly almost two hours using only a couple gallons of gas. Even better, the cost of the airplane was only $10 and the total […]

When I put out a request several months ago for responses from pilots on what they would like controllers to know, along with the responses I received from pilots I also received messages from several controllers. Dan Mason said when he saw the title of the previous article (“Working With Controllers,” August 2008), he thought, […]

I realized I was taking a risk when I put out the request for feedback from pilots on what they want controllers to know. This would be a good opportunity to “rant” about controllers, and I was afraid I might get quite a few pilots who only wanted to complain. I didn’t need to worry. […]

In early June all members of the Civil Air Patrol in the Southwest Region, which includes the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, received the following message from the Southwest Region Commander, Col. Joseph Jensen: “I am sorry to report that we have recently had two hard landings in the Southwest […]

I have always thought it was extremely unfortunate when a professional pilot or crew carefully plans a flight, expertly follows the flight plan, and then suddenly makes a snap decision that undoes all their careful planning and execution. An accident at the Ellen Church Field Airport (CJJ) in Cresco, Iowa, in July 2006 illustrates how […]

I thought I had covered the whole subject of the controller/pilot interface pretty thoroughly. In the January 2008 issue (“The Controller Failed to Inform…”), I used two accidents to illustrate the perils of depending on the controller to keep out of weather and away from high terrain. In the July issue (“Saved by the Controller”) […]

It should be a fairly simple relationship. Pilots fly airplanes. Controllers watch the airplanes, either visually or using radar, and provide instructions that help those pilots reach their destination safely. However, we all know that any interaction involving lots of communication can quickly get complicated. To make matters more difficult, pilots and controllers can’t see […]