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Something about flying a twin grabs your attention. Sitting up high, a fistful of throttles, clear one, turning one – it all adds up to a feeling of power and control.

Thats appropriate, of course, because power and control are the big issues in learning to fly a light twin. Its not a matter of having power and control, its that you can lose them very quickly when something goes wrong. Flying a light twin isnt for everyone, and its not a panacea that takes all the risk out of flying. But with proper instruction, flying a twin is, in some ways, as good as it gets.

Are Two Better Than One?
The biggest myth of light twins is that they are inherently safer than singles…

Although you hate to admit it, some pilots just seem to be asking for it. They fly like drunken outlaw motorcyclists, always dodging regs and cutting corners. You can usually spot their aircraft by the duct tape on the landing gear. When these guys crash their airplanes, you shake your head knowingly and say, What the hell was he thinking, anyway?

At the other end of the scale, there are those times when a highly trained, proficient, conscientious pilot augers one in. When it happens to airliners the feds spare no effort until they get to a conclusion the experts can live with. But among general aviation crashes, the scorched earth approach to accident investigation falls victim to too…

There comes a time in almost every pilots career when the need arises to transit high terrain or overfly weather at an altitude in the low to mid teens.

Sometimes the climb is planned, such as crossing a mountain pass in the west or the Appalachians in the east. Sometimes its not, like when trying to overfly building cumulus clouds on a summer morning. In either case, the flight to higher altitude is generally intended to be brief and the need for supplemental oxygen is often written off.

These flights seem to start out smoothly. Once you climb, you wonder why you dont fly high more often. Things are going well – very well, in fact. You realize you havent felt this well in years….

Consider the pilot – a creature of superior intelligence and drive who tires easily of the mundane in the search for new adventure. The pilot looks to the sky and sees romance where the rest of humanity sees only a place from which rain falls. The pilot is the quintessential lover and like anyone in love is completely blind to the reality of relationships. In our case its the relationship to our passengers.

We pilots havent a clue what passengers expect when they climb into our machines. We assume they share our passion for flying, but we forget that it was we who left the real world to gain our wings. Whenever we make that occasional foray back to share our gift, the recipients might…

Recently the FAA issued a warning to operators of jets and turboprops not to substitute K-1 kerosene (used for home heating, among other things) for Jet-A. The FAA had discovered a parachuting operation using K-1 in its fleet of turboprops and warned other turbine operators not to do the same.

The kerosene used in this case may work for a considerable amount of time until one gets a load of bad fuel, the FAA reported. The manufacturing quality control system used to produce K-1 kerosene is far less stringent than for Jet-A aviation fuel.

The use of kerosene in certified aircraft is a violation of the aircrafts type certificate, but warbird aficionados have wondered what differen…

Most of the time American aviators learn and study about American accidents, but accident reports and studies from other countries can also pack useful lessons. For example, one interesting difference between flying in the United States and many other countries is the freedom to fly VFR at night. Most countries require pilots to be instrument rated and to be on a IFR flight plan to fly at night. Many others do not allow single engine flying at night.

Within the U.S. and a handful of other countries, single engine night VFR flying is accepted without question. However, pilots and investigators from countries that do not allow single engine night VFR flying can cite relevant accident stati…

The FAA has set minimum requirements that pilots must meet in order to legally fly, but meeting those minimums probably arent enough to keep you safe.

A couple of years ago Daniel Webster College established an orientation program for incoming freshmen in which they would be indoctrinated into the ways of college life. One speaker, a professor of Humanities, discussed the virtues of the educated man in days gone by versus the learned man or woman of today. One of his points was that although there was a time when an individual could, in fact, read every book in existence and learn all that educated people should know, those days were long gone. His point was that it is no longer possib…

There comes a time in every pilots career when they get ready to launch on a flight they really shouldnt make.

The warning signs are there. Maybe the pilot isnt feeling up to snuff. Maybe the mechanical health of the airplane is suspect. Maybe the weather is either threatening to go bad or already is below the pilots or legal minimums.

This is the stuff of flying. Forget about stick and rudder. Forget about IFR radio technique. Forget about navigation. Think instead about the C that comes with being PIC. Command. It implies the skill to measure the likelihood of a favorable outcome and the wisdom to know if the risk is worth the outcome. In short, its the competition between judgm…

Some 14 months ago, 20 people died when a U.S. Marines Prowler cut a ski gondola cable in a valley near Cavalese, Italy. Captain Richard Ashby, the pilot, and Captain Joseph Schwitzer, the navigator, were facing trial on criminal charges as this issue went to press. Although the easy explanation is that the jet was flying too fast and too low through the valley, the scenario includes another twist.

Air crews rely on maps given to them by the United States to plan their mission, says Frank Spinner, a civilian lawyer hired to assist Ashbys military lawyers. When you have an uncharted obstruction that goes 500 feet above ground level smack in the middle of an approved low-altitude route,…

Like it or not, some pilots hibernate during the winter. Their return to the air in spring brings numerous special hazards – to themselves and to others. Woe to the pilot who wakes the airplane from its long winters nap on the first warming day of spring with nary a thought to what may have happened to both his skills and the planes airworthiness during the cold winter months.

Piloting skills, of course, erode after a few months layoff. To a degree, deterioration of flying skills is related to experience. If youve accumulated tens of thousands of hours and have flown the same aircraft for years, then the adverse impact of a short vacation from flying will be relatively slight. On the…