Richard L. Collins

What goes before that, in planning and training, determines what kind of instrument pilot emerges from the process. Here we want to go through what it takes to produce the best and most complete instrument-rated pilot. When we were writing about learning to fly, it was suggested that a private pilot course should be completed […]

There’s plenty of information on the operating limitations of an airplane. A VG diagram (in some applications called a VN diagram) shows many things including stalling speed, maneuvering speed, maximum allowable speed, maximum indicated airspeed in rough air and maximum allowable G loading, both positive and negative. Operate within the parameters of the VG diagram […]

Les Abend is a well-trained airline pilot who gets comprehensive recurrent training, who is bound by extensive government and company regulations, and who never flies his Boeing without a well-qualified second pilot and without concurrence of a dispatch system. It goes without saying that the capabilities of his airplane outstrip what most of us fly […]

A lot of pilots saw some impressive video of a German Airbus airline crew trying to land in a horrendous crosswind. Other than the wind, the weather was good. The crab angle on final was substantial and the turbulence enthusiastic. It turned into quite a tussle over the runway as the pilot tried to land. […]

What, you may ask, is a middle altitude? A wiseacre might say that it is the airspace between low and high altitudes and he would be right. The highest level for the middle might be Flight Level 250. The aircraft certification standards change above that altitude. Or it might be Flight Level 230 where air […]

Weather to a ground person and weather to an air person are two completely different things. The ground person feels temperature and wind and precipitation and looks out the window or up at the sky at clouds. The ground person has to wait patiently for the weather in his location to change. Those of us […]

An old friend was joshing the other day about how I fly my single-engine airplane like it is an airliner. Checklists, procedures, callouts, I do them all. My friend is an airline pilot and I took his remarks as a compliment. I have always thought that if we emulate professional aircrews (to the extent possible) […]

From the NTSB: “The controller asked the pilot if he had weather radar on board, and he reported he did and it gave him weather every five minutes. “At 0930, the controller reported to the pilot that the ‘lightest weather’ was ‘about a one nine five heading for seven miles and then it looks like […]

The official name is XM WX Satellite Weather. Most pilots just call it XM Weather. The neat thing about it is that it offers virtually all available weather information and can be received and displayed on handheld units or on a variety of panel-mount units. There is an instrument panel docking station system available for […]

A lot of pilots are satisfied to fly away with the terminal forecasts and metars (in plain language, please) and I suppose that might meet the letter of the law on weather information. But there is so much more than that to weather and the pilot who puts some effort into understanding weather, and how […]