Airmanship

Near Hernandez, N.M., headed south, I noticed the moon rising to my left. It reminded me of Ansel Adams’s iconic 1941 photograph, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. I took out my phone and tried to snap a picture. My more artistic friends might be amused by the effort. Adams used a large-format camera with a very […]

I have dealt with paper chart updates both as a student pilot and a professional pilot, and I can safely say I prefer EFBs. The worst luck I ever had with paper charts occurred before my private pilot checkride. I ended up weathered out on my first attempt, and the charts expired a few days before […]

The Sphinx was a mythological monster who forced passing travelers to answer her riddle, eating those who struggled to find an answer. “Which is the creature that has one voice, but has four feet in the morning, two feet in the afternoon and three feet at night?” Oedipus’s correct answer was that the creature is […]

I have always considered myself a pilot who plays by the rules. Dare I say I may be a “goody two-shoes” to some? But I’m always trying my best to be someone quite familiar with the wide range of regulations and procedures expected of me both as a general aviation and an airline flyer has served […]

Like many pilots, I vividly remember being handed my temporary private pilot certificate with my examiner’s congratulations and his admonishment that it was a “license to learn.” Through the years after, I heard then taught and later often wrote about how the FAA practical test standards (PTS), now the airmen certification standards (ACS), represent a […]

It’s that time of year again in the Northern Hemisphere. For those of us rarely straying into the teens or above, airframe icing usually isn’t a thing until late fall. Nowadays, with the typical freezing level much lower than other times during the year, we’re much more likely to see it up close and personal. […]

Look at an airspeed indicator or vertical speed tape, as below, in a piston-powered airplane and you’ll see a yellow range of indicated speeds. This is called the “caution range.” Since typical piston airplanes can’t cruise in this speed range under most circumstances, we often don’t spend a lot of time learning how very different […]

Ludwig Wittgenstein was among the most difficult and abstract of philosophers. But that’s not how he started out. Wittgenstein was an early pioneer in aeronautical engineering. He published a treatise on propellers in 1911, just eight years after the Wright Brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk. He went to England to learn more about aerodynamics, […]

The FAA defines a slip as a condition in which the airplane’s bank angle is “too steep for the existing rate of turn.” In other words, the airplane is not in coordinated flight, which in fact could be the pilot’s desire. For example, slipping is a time-honored way to lose altitude quickly in an airplane […]

As we were quite literally pushing the button to send our October 2022 issue off to the printer, news unexpectedly arrived that many of us had been waiting for: The FAA granted General Aviation Modifications, Inc. (GAMI) its long-sought airframe and engine supplemental type certificate (STC) for the company’s G100UL unleaded aviation gasoline. Although GAMI […]