Learning Experiences

It took his instructor and another airplane for this student pilot to learn about proper approach speeds.

Overconfidence, with a strong desire to sleep in my own bed that night, almost leads to disaster from multiple causes.

The long-ago misuse of a torque wrench on a fuel injector eventually came back to haunt this pilot.

A coworker and I needed to get to a reliever airport in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, leaving from the Washington, D.C., area. We were going to use my Piper Saratoga SP, which could make the trip without stopping. It was late spring, and winter’s remnants included a fast-moving cold front lying across our preferred route. It […]

Flying for the most part is an enjoyable experience providing a wonderful break from the daily grind of earthbound life. However, the gods of flight do not take kindly to decisions based more upon self-assured hubris than a sober assessment of available options.  Part of the problem is that the more proficient you get, the […]

As my initial CFI checkride approached, I had been spending a lot of time in an airplane’s right seat, unlearning several years of flying from the left one.  One bright Saturday morning, my flying club was giving demo rides to prospective members, sort of a “you can learn to fly, too” event for professionals. I […]

The day’s mission was a 1450-mile round trip to retrieve a friend’s son for a holiday visit. My V35 Bonanza had been fueled the night before for an early departure, and the two passengers arrived on schedule. After passenger briefings and an explanation of how to open and close the cabin door, among other items, […]

I was a new private pilot with about 100 hours, training for my instrument rating. A schoolmate asked if I wanted to go as a passenger to a very busy international airport to pick up a friend. He was supposedly well-trained with more hours than me, but did not feel comfortable flying into a busy airport. […]

I was a student pilot with approximately 20 hours. During one of my flights back to my home airport, I was talking to the tower and was given approach instructions. Then the frequency lit up with an emergency call, the pilot reporting engine failure. The airplane had lost its engine on takeoff and the pilot […]

It was a beautiful day for flying, if a bit breezy, which contributed some bumps. That would be important later. Meanwhile, I was out with a new-to-me rented Cessna 210 to bore some holes with a pilot-rated friend. After boring holes in the local airspace, we headed back to the airplane’s home base. The bumps […]