Michael Wildes Archives | Page 34 of 34

The Threat and Promise of AAM

Former premier of the Soviet Union Vladimir Ilyich Lenin once said, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” If you hold that axiom up to the light, you might think that this uncanny attribution was about the aviation industry. Sometimes the industry inches along like Caribbean molasses; other times, […]

The Weather Conundrum

In the July 28 edition of the Journal of Transportation (JAT), researchers from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University published a study that argued that “a lack of weather knowledge and poor product interpretability may be contributing to the high probability of fatalities in general aviation (GA) weather-related accidents.” Despite all the technological progress we’ve made in the […]

Talk to Yourself. It Works.

“In instrument training, if you’re not doing something, you’re missing something,” Chris said. Chris was my new instructor, assigned to me for my instrument training. I didn’t understand what he meant at the time, until one quiet night we were flying along, and the instructions from the air traffic controller, who called out numbers like […]

Didn’t Mean to Startle You

“Be careful out there. These kids will try to kill ya,” my instructor said to me after he signed me off for my multi-engine instructor (MEI) checkride. Having just completed my own series of engines-out training and seeing my own reaction, I understood what he meant about how unsuspecting our human nature is. Years before, […]

What Tom Brady Can Teach You About Being an Effective Pilot

“Tom, it’s not bad,” reassures Tom House, the mustached throwing coach of Tom Brady, during Brady’s “Tom vs. Time” streaming series. It’s July 1, 2017, during the NFL preseason, and Brady, armored in his shoulder pads and mixed-matched sportswear, is in Los Angeles working with Coach House to improve his throw ahead of his 18th […]

How I Became a Flight Instructor

Becoming a flight instructor was the very last thing on my to-do list. If we’re being completely honest, very few pilots decide to do so on their own. So how did I find myself in this position? In 2009, Colgan 3407, a Continental Airlines passenger flight, crashed into a house after an aerodynamic stall. The […]