Aviation Safety

At the time I experienced this tale, I had maybe 400 hours total time, along with an instrument rating. I had been renting airplanes from FBOs but was finding my choices—mainly trainers—plus scheduling and weekend minimums weren’t aligned with my growing desires. I needed something faster, with longer legs and fewer hassles. So I anted […]

January 2, 2021, Moab, Utah Cessna P210N Pressurized Centurion At about 1430 Mountain time, the airplane was substantially damaged during an attempted takeoff when its engine lost power. The pilot and three passengers were not injured. Visual conditions prevailed. According to the pilot, pre-takeoff operations were normal. Shortly after liftoff, at about 100-200 feet agl, […]

A lot of pixels and ink have been spilled over the last several decades discussing the ever-increasing automation in our cockpits and the challenges thereof. Some of those spills involve detailed directions on how to operate a specific piece of avionics equipment while others focus on the larger picture of how the equipment and the airframe/powerplant […]

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is formally asking the FAA and the National Weather Service (NWS) to take steps designed to improve the accuracy of automated weather observations by addressing equipment malfunctions in a more proactive manner. The requests come as the NTSB completes its investigations into the February 15, 2019, fatal crash of […]

Over the years, I’ve cancelled several planned flights, answering the go/no-go question in the negative. Many other flights got rescheduled and were completed—either earlier or later than the original plan—while only a handful were attempted but never completed, at least not in keeping with the original plan. Weather has been the most frequent reason for […]

I have something of a love-hate relationship with night flying. On one hand, I love the view of a city lit up at night, or the stars overhead, when away from ground lighting. There’s also the relatively low activity levels at airports and on ATC frequencies, the smoother air and how it’s easier to spot […]

There’s a school of thought that says no pilot should react to anything in the cockpit quickly. At least some of the thinking behind this philosophy is that humans make more mistakes when they are rushed to a decision or action than when they have time to consider what steps to take and then, you […]

When an instrument-rated pilot thinks of an approach, he or she likely pictures a so-called standard instrument approach procedure, or SIAP, the published approaches we all have come to know and “love.” A SIAP is described in FAR Part 97 and in published charting data available from the FAA and Jeppesen, for example. Standard approach […]

After reading Tom Turner’s excellent article on non-precision approaches (“Non-Precision Stability,” January 2021), I’d like to add a couple of comments as a “legacy dive and driver” (instrument-rated in 1961). First of all, the Instrument Flying Handbook talks about the benefits of stable descent for swept-wing jet aircraft, and they do exist; I flew them […]

There’s a performance chart for every basic phase of flight. Pilots use them to determine how fast they can fly, for how long and how much runway they’ll use doing it, among other things. The tables, graphs and charts in the performance section of your typical personal airplane’s flight manual or operating handbook purport to […]