Features

Sure, controllers work for the the FAA. But that doesn’t mean all clearances and directives have to be followed. Here’s how to refuse a bad clearance.

When your airplane breaks during a trip, you have a dilemma: fix it or defer it for the trip home. Here are some commonsense guidelines.

We asked readers to tell us what they consider risky and what they dont. The numbers include some surprising revelations.

A lot of devices detect thunderstorms, but can any of them find clear air turbulence? The answer may surprise you.

The NTSB has several (too many, actually…) categories it uses to classify aviation incidents and accidents. Among them is the catch-all phrase improper IFR, which the Board usually uses to describe a pilot executing procedures you wont find in the Aeronautical Information Manual.But there is no similar category for controllers who, for whatever reason, provide substandard and/or confusing service to pilots clearly suffering under a high workload. A good example of how the improper IFR label can be applied to controllers as well as pilots-simultaneously-occurred on January 23, 2003, when a Cirrus SR-20 collided with power lines near San Jose, Calif.The Private pilot/owner was kille…

TAWs is supposed reduce flight into terrain. Heres an update on the technology and how an FAA rule has made it affordable for the little guy.

Thats what a taildragger is like. Yet anyone can learn the deft use of rudder and brakes to keep it on the runway. Heres how.

A step-by-step guide for using GPS to monitor your climb gradient when terrain and obstacles threaten. (And even when they dont.)

Your only engine, that is. Here are three pilots with happy-ending engine-failure tales. Their advice: plan for it, train for it and fly the airplane.

Recent research confirms what weve always known: mid-airs are predictable and avoidable. You just need to know where and how to look.