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Comanche seven-three Papa, Wichita approach; winds two-zero-zero degrees at one-eight, gusts to 30.” “Approach, seven-three Pop; copy the winds…guess well keep up the pace a bit.” “Comanche Seven-Three Papa, Dorothy says, Welcome to Kansas.” When first sitting down to assemble this article, my initial thoughts turned to my logbook. Inside it are more than a few notations about such not-unusual days; the controllers welcome in this one made me chuckle. At almost the same instant, the sound of 30-knot gusts rattling the trees outside my office focused my attention on the days local conditions-an environment offering abundant signs that any flying means dealing with gusts. My familiarity with gusty conditions started developing during my primary training. A regular part of my time-building solo practice involved August afternoons hopping among five Wichita-area fields. Typically, those hot summer days and nights brought winds blowing hard, in the teens to low 20s, and usually gusty-as much as 20 knots above the mean. For much of that month gusty winds served up a significant challenge for a student pilot armed only with a Cherokee 140 and determination. Hey, its Kansas.

My first “actual” instrument flight after earning the rating was a 27-nm hop from Sedalia to Boonville, Mo., in a Cessna 172. The entire flight was flown below radar coverage. Navigation was by ADF-an outbound bearing from Sedalia to intercept an inbound to Boonvilles Jessie Vertiel Memorial Airport. With my clearance received I climbed into juicy clouds at about 800 feet agl and cruised to the “far” NDB, thence flying the full-procedure approach. I had a strong crosswind on the inbound course; it was too low for VOR cross-bearings, so my navigation was by the lone, waggling ADF needle, my watch and a rough guess at my probable groundspeed. I juggled the approach plate, my charts and kneeboard, and the flight controls as I fought light turbulence while hoping to hold my wind-corrected bearing to avoid towers growing up into the murk. I broke out about two miles from the runway, lucky to pick out and avoid a Cessna scud-running just beneath the cloud deck, then scooted the rest of the way in at MDA until intercepting the VASI and landing in a stiff wind.

My story involving a glass-panel failure happened with an Avidyne unit. I was at Wick, Scotland, lining up for departure, and suddenly things started failing. First the lower Garmin 430, then the upper one. The transponder quickly followed and by then the PFD looked like a demo poster for what happens when things fail. The great news was that I was on the ground-even without a radio. It turned out the number one alternator and the master control unit had failed. Whether one had caused the other was incidental at that point. In marginal weather, with no radio, only the most basic of flight instruments and no VOR or other electronic guidance? I surely wasnt taking off; being airborne and trying to land would have been harrowing. My handheld GPS had just become my new best friend; Ive double-checked its batteries ever since. Between it and my Sportys handheld nav/com (yes, I keep those batteries fresh, too), I would have had a shot at getting down in one piece. We might carry some backup radios and gadgets, but how prepared are we to deal with major system outages when in the clag? Short of the odd IPC or checkride, how often do we practice for-real panel failures? Why not use everyday flying to stay sharp on partial panel?

The instrument landing system (ILS) is a really wonderful gadget. When everythings working as it should be, gently keep the aircraft aligned with the transmitted electronic beam, wait long enough and a runway materializes where only a few moments before there was nothing. Pure magic. Its basic technology was perfected long ago, and the fact it remains the primary precision approach is truly remarkable. Of course, the ILS is not without its limitations. For one, it requires substantial site preparation and cannot be installed at just any airport or runway. Its basic characteristics require understanding, too, including the likelihood of false glideslopes, back courses and the possibility of interference from nearby buildings and aircraft. To function correctly, the localizer and glideslope antennas must be placed in specific locations; not all runway environments can accommodate these requirements.

Nothing can spoil a nice trip on a good-weather day like bumpy air. Like most other things in meteorology, its somewhat possible to predict turbulence. But unlike most other things in meteorology, as well as in life itself, there is something you can do about it. Altitude, time of day, tall-and not-so-tall-buildings and the relative flatness of the terrain over which were flying can all combine to make what should have been a smooth, relaxing flight into your (or your passengers) worst nightmare. Sometimes, those are the cards youre dealt. Most of the time, though, it doesnt have to be that way. The air that supports our aircraft is a fluid subject to the laws of physics. Ignoring the local influence of the sun and obstructions for a moment, when the wind blows, its flow is laminar-all air moves together smoothly. Even though that air might be moving rapidly it will be pretty smooth. If you upset the laminar flow of that wind, things can get interesting in a hurry. The upset can be something physical like a mountain or just a different air flow. The result on the nice days is just a slight change to the laminar flow of the wind. On bumpy days, though, the result is air in the boundary between the laminar flow and the upsetting influence is not smooth at all. In fact, there are often eddies and backflows, same as you get aft of an airfoil thats just at or past the its critical angle of attack. Depending on the strength of the wind and the opposing forces, those eddies and backflows can be slight or quite severe, with the corresponding flight through them being either a little jittery or enough to separate wing from fuselage.

Its probably a fair bet that every person who has flown an airplane more than about 20 hours has made at least five landings he or she not only considers personally embarrassing but remains convinced to this day could be measured on the Richter scale. So, lets be honest with ourselves from the very beginning: As active pilots, we are going to make ugly landings from time to time. Further, Murphys Law says we will probably make them when a lot of people are watching. Therefore, lets recognize that a little humility (and perhaps humiliation) is the price of acquiring and maintaining the skills necessary to cause a rapidly moving flying machine to return to the planet in a condition to be reused immediately. As a result, once we firmly accept that from time to time were going to make runway arrivals of the sort to make cement contractors rub their hands in financial glee, we are going to be less likely to try to force the airplane onto the ground due to embarrassment after we have bounced telephone pole high, and more likely to think rationally about the attitude, speed and altitude of the airplane and proceed to coolly evaluate whether to try to salvage the landing or go around.

Aircraft engines these days come in a lot more flavors and configurations than they used to, thanks largely to the advent of two forms of alternative aviation: most recently, the light sport aircraft (LSA) market and, much earlier, the 1990s surge in experimental/amateur kit-built aircraft. Where some of the more-popular experimental designs and several legacy-S-LSA models employ familiar powerplants, the majority fly with engines from BRP-Rotax in Austria, HKS in Japan and Jabiru in Australia. Who are these companies and whats their track record in making flying-machine engines? How do they compare to the “traditional,” FAA-certified offerings from Continental and Lycoming? Who sets the standards? And whats their safety record? These newer engines can spur concerns among ardent fans of the familiar, tried-and-true air-cooled flat aircraft engines from Textron Lycoming and Teledyne Continental Motors. Often, it seems, those concerns grow out of unfamiliarity. The differences in care and feeding and in systems fuels debates about their reliability and, in turn, safety of the newer engines.

Perhaps youve heard the riddle, “What do you call the person who graduates at the bottom of the class in medical school?” The answer: Doctor. The maxim being conveyed applies equally well to aviation: What do you call the pilot who has met the minimum standards set forth in FAR 61.183-187? Answer: Certificated Flight Instructor. Yet whether acting in the capacity of doctor or flight instructor, that individual is directly responsible for another persons well being. Others literally may live or die based directly on the doctors and the flight instructors knowledge and skills. The path to becoming a practicing doctor evolved to include a rigorous course of study and years of apprenticeship: college, med school, internship, residency, fellowship. The tradition in aviation, on the other hand, has been to treat flight instructing as the bullpen for corporate and airline flying. Still clinging to this model, many instructors teach largely for their own benefit and not the benefit of their students. Instructing, after all, is supposed to be a transient phase; building time, the primary goal; low pay and high turnover at flight schools, expected.

Flight time and experience requirements are dropping nearly everywhere pilots are being hired. Some airlines will now hire pilots and put them in the right seat of a jet with no more than a commercial multi-engine ticket and the couple hundred hours required to get it. Critics think this will cause airplanes to fall out of the sky. Others claim improved training and rigorous attention to procedures makes the difference. Lets take a look at both sides of that debate, and see what lessons we can learn from that to improve our own flying. Theres no argument that experience builds skill and with that experience, hopefully, good judgment follows. Judgment can be taught to some extent, but as the saying goes, there is no substitute for experience. Were reminded of one instructor we knew who tried to pass along the lessons learned from his own experience. But he was quick to point out that he was just one person and with an infinite number of possible mistakes, hed only made half a lifetime of his own, so its important to have the judgment to avoid as many as possible and the skill to survive the rest.

In 1985, I purchased a then-39-year-old 1946 Cessna 120. Several times my friends asked, “Is it safe to fly a 40-year-old airplane?” Their question was based on perceptions of the typical condition of 40-year-old cars, tools and houses. My answer was always a version of this: Properly maintained, a 40-year-old airplane is as safe as one much newer. Unlike cars and houses, airplanes are inspected annually and maintained to a high standard. As long as the pilot puts the time and money into it, and takes it to a mechanic experienced in the peculiarities of the type, it is indeed safe to fly a 40-year-old airplane. Fast-forward to 2008. According to AOPA, the average piston-powered general aviation airplane is more than 35 years old. Leisure suits, my high school graduation and the end of mass production of light propeller airplanes-1978 to 1979-were that long ago. Unlike when I bought my Cessna, now its not unusual at all for a light airplane to be 40 years old; 50- and even 60-year-old piston airplanes are increasingly common. Are airplanes this old still safe? What does it take to safely operate aging airplanes?