Aviation Safety

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

Why bother getting the rating when the avionics will fly the airplane on instruments better than I can?

A monthly summary of recently published NTSB preliminary accident reports involving general aviation and air carrier aircraft.

Change can be good. It can also soak up your mental bandwidth and force you into reacting instead of planning.

Runway layouts can make it easy to get confused or forget the missed approach course when circling to land.

I just finished reading the October 2023 issue. Thanks for the opportunity to share “The Overconfidence Beast” as a Learning Experience for your readers. Aviation Safety is a most valuable conduit for a mutual sharing of experience and expertise leading to a safer industry. Thank goodness we can learn from others. “No Pressure” takes me […]

Like many of you, I used a personal airplane over the Thanksgiving holiday to be with family. I flew from Florida to a spot in the Virginia mountains and back, over 700 nm one-way flown nonstop. The northbound portion featured decent weather and a tailwind. The southbound leg included a mix of everything, including stiff […]

In real life, it’s rarely a standard day. The differences can turn our high-performance airplane into a real dog.

There are almost as many checklists as there are pilots flying, but they all may lack one critical feature.

Knowing how we respond to fear can help prevent panic, and turn a bad situation into one with a favorable outcome.