Airmanship

I learned to fly “the old-fashioned way,” in a Cessna 152 with its roots firmly in the Eisenhower administration. It had seemingly endured approximately one million hours. I had various flight instructors—none of them were any good, of course, in my eyes, because I had 14 hours of flight time and I was in my […]

I’m a big believer in “chair flying.” The best chair is the pilot’s seat of the aircraft you’re learning, with the engine or engines stopped and external electrical power. As a helicopter student, I spent many happy hours sitting in the hangared Robinson, practicing autorotations, a maneuver I found really difficult. Hold your hand like […]

So I’m flying along, fat, dumb and happy in my Lancair IV-P. I had blasted off out of Fargo, N.D. There is good news and bad news about the frozen north, my new home. Okay, the bad news first—it’s really cold here. Did you know that the Centigrade/Celsius system is the same as the Fahrenheit […]

At about 1600 local time, the transient Cherokee 180 pilot requested that his airplane be fueled. The line staff was unable to do so at that time due to heavy rain and lightning nearby. Meanwhile, FBO personnel discussed his plan to take off in poor weather at night. The recently certificated private pilot, heading home […]

The FAA on February 23, 2023 published a new, final airworthiness directive (AD 2023–04–08) highlighting a problem with new Continental engines manufactured between June 1, 2021, and Feb. 7, 2023. According to the agency, “The manufacturer has notified the FAA that 2,176 crankshaft assemblies are subject to the unsafe condition. The FAA estimates that of […]

As you should know by now, the FAA’s Airport/Facility Directory recently was renamed the Chart Supplement. It’s the same multi-volume reference with information like: “CAUTION—FISH SPOTTING ACTIVITY—CHESAPEAKE BAY AND COASTAL WATERS. Caution is advised for extensive fish spotter aircraft activity between May 1 and December 1 upwards from 1500 feet above the surface over the […]

When I began my ab initio training, it seemed to take forever to get off the ground. Working through the preflight, before-start, run-up checklists, step-by-step in the order provided seemed to take up a lot of time I wanted to spend airborne. Of course, with practice comes efficiency. Eventually I would complete the steps in […]

The aftereffects of the FAA’s January 11, 2023, Notam system outage continue to ripple through the industry. If you’re just joining us, you should know the FAA was forced to issue a ground-stop in U.S. airspace after Notams (notices to air missions) became unavailable during a glitchy system upgrade. According to online sister publication AVweb.com, […]

In a perfect aviation world, skies would always be clear, our engines would merely sip cheap fuel by the pint instead of guzzle it by the gallon, and the winds always would be right down the runway. That world, of course, doesn’t exist, so we’re forced to get an instrument rating, plan fuel stops and […]

As long as we fly aircraft with retractable landing gear, there will be gear-up landings, a phenomenon not unique to any one make or model of airplane. Read the daily FAA aircraft incident reports—the vast majority of which do not meet NTSB reporting criteria and so will not be investigated further or included in official […]