Tom Benenson

(July 2011) It was a silence I wasn’t used to. Actually, it wasn’t all that quiet what with the whirr of hummingbirds’ wings, the braying of burros and the cooing of doves. But what I wasn’t hearing was the sound of airplanes. For the two months I spent in Oaxaca, Mexico, last winter, the skies […]

Which is safer, a 10,000-hour pilot who has flown only 20 hours in the last year or a 200-hour pilot who has flown frequently in the last month?

(November 2011) Remember when the examiner handed you your temporary pilot’s certificate and said something on the order of “this is just a license to learn”? Most of us begin, after pocketing our hard-won certificate and no longer under the aegis of our instructor, a period of self-taught learning as we experience the nuts and […]

(October 2011) The concept of staying current always seemed an intellectual one to me. While I still had my Cessna Cardinal, I tried to fly it every week or so to keep its fluids — and mine — flowing. As a result, I was able to routinely check off most of the currency boxes without […]

(September 2011) The following conversation did not take place during the Pilot Training Reform Symposium sponsored by SAFE (Society of Aviation and Flight Educators) — but it could have. During a coffee break between sessions, a small cluster of aviation educators are discussing ways to lower the stagnant rate of general aviation acci- dents and […]

_(August 2011) _The Cessna Cardinal RG was sitting forlornly at the edge of Montgomery Field in San Diego with a “for sale” banner hanging from its propeller. As we came out of the parking lot after having lunch at a sushi restaurant across from the airport, Judith pointed at the Cardinal. Isn’t that one of […]

(June 2011) It makes me want to go back to high school,” I confessed to Patrick J. Cwayna Sr., CEO of the West Michigan Aviation Academy (WMAA). His response wasn’t surprising. “I hear that a lot,” he said. “Many of the students’ parents tell me that; they really recognize the value of what we’re offering […]

(May 2011) I remember early in my training for my Private certificate, Jack Secor, my instructor, suggested that, while I was out doing my solo flights, rather than just flying around enjoying myself, I could use the time more productively to do some slow flight and practice stall recoveries. That practice and subsequent frequent refresher […]

(April 2011) REMEMBER THE RIDE BOARDS at school? Students with cars would post notices of where they were headed during school breaks and invite other students to ride along. At the same time students looking for rides would post their trip requests. The system, with the notices thumbtacked to a bulletin board, worked well, and […]

(March 2011) — There’s a concept in the philosophy of science that inventions and theories occur when the time is right for their discovery. If that’s the case, then the time seems to be ripe for doing something to make a significant change in the general aviation paradigm. The day prior to its Aviation Summit […]