Richard L. Collins

Whenever there is an accident, pilots should get into that old “learning from events” mode. The recent 737 runway overrun at Chicago Midway created a lot of food for thought. In a preliminary NTSB report, it was noted that the dispatchers and the crew had calculated that Runway 31C at Midway was okay for landing […]

I have written that it is madness to certify light airplanes for flight in icing conditions. Some have misinterpreted that to mean that I don’t think light airplanes should be equipped with ice-protection gear. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think the ice protection systems that are available today, and that are not […]

Our fine friend and colleague Len Morgan died on March 11 after a long illness. He was 82. In his late teens, Len went off to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. The United States had not yet entered World War II and Len and 11 other Americans earned their RCAF wings on […]

To begin, pilots are almost never “trapped” by weather. Some will come up with a tale they think proves that they were “trapped,” but you simply have to fly by too many clues to wind up in weather trouble without some sense of trespass. So what is the biggest trap? Simple. The forecasts, or, the […]

The Mooney Ovation2 GX debuted in late 2004 with the Garmin G1000 integrated flight deck.

The FAA decided a while back that “distractions” are a factor in accidents, especially IFR accidents, and added them to the Practical Test Standards guide. The FAA also recently added use of equipment to the PTS including glass cockpits, use of the standby instruments for a non-precision approach, GPS approaches and autopilot use that applicants […]

Can one man’s love affair with flying safely lead him from a Skylane to the jet lane? Richard Collins evaluates one pilot’s flying. Don Stephens, 67, is a (retiring), as he puts it, builder/developer. He has been flying out of the Lakeland, Florida, airport since he started 37 years ago and has owned a Cessna […]

A training hurricane in western Pennsylvania I had been flying the full-motion flight training device (FTD) for a few minutes and was lining up for an ILS to Runway 4 at New York La Guardia when I asked Rich Kaplan, proprietor of Flight Level Aviation, the name of the hurricane in which we were flying. […]

Ed Graham, 19, is a college student, swim coach and lifeguard. The proceeds from the last two activities have gone into a private certificate and instrument rating and are now propelling Ed toward a commercial certificate and CFI. He flies out of Long Beach and John Wayne in Southern California. He has 250 flying hours, […]

The folks at Adam Aircraft don’t particularly like it when their new airplane is referred to as a “push-pull,” the most common (and cleanest) name attached to the Cessna Skymaster that made its debut about 40 years ago. The concept of centerline thrust, tandem power, was actually patented by Claudius Dornier in 1937 and developed […]