Aviation Safety

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” a quote attributed to Allen Saunders and popularized by John Lennon, might be thought of as a pithy summary of 2020, a year that started with great promise and ended, at best, with uncertainty. Along the way, we all learned new things we […]

The AeroVue Touch is a full-function PFD/MFD solution designed to replace all six legacy instruments. Features include SmartView synthetic vision and a vertical situation display show terrain. It also handles ADS-B In weather and traffic. The system includes the 10.1-inch display shown at left, plus a panel-mounted control set. A remote-mounted magnetometer and outside air […]

In no-wind situations as pictured in the diagram at top right, wake vortices tend to move outward laterally across the surface at about three knots. However, when light crosswinds are present, the downwind vortices will move at three knots plus the wind velocity. The upwind vortices, meanwhile will stay over the runway, as shown in […]

At right is a sectional chart excerpt, covering the Ocala (Florida) International Airport-Jim Taylor Field, KOCF. You want to get to nearby Marion County Airport (X35), shown here at the end of the blue line to the southwest. Also depicted are two areas of obstructions on either side of your route, circled in red, just […]

Once you’ve cleared the Class B/C/D or E surface area airspace where you obtained an SVFR clearance to exit, you’re likely in Class E airspace, where VFR minimums are the “standard” 1000 feet and three miles. You’ll need every bit of that to stay in legal VFR over non-congested areas, as shown at right. Since […]

According to the FAA’s Instrument Flying Handbook, common ways pilots get their airplane into an unusual attitude include: 1. Failure to keep the airplane properly trimmed. A flight deck interruption when holding  [control] pressures can easily lead to inadvertent entry into unusual attitudes. 2 Disorganized flight deck. Hunting for charts, logs, computers, etc., can seriously […]

According to the IFH, in moderate unusual attitudes, the pilot can normally reorient by establishing a level flight indication on the attitude indicator. The IFH cautions, however that “the pilot should not depend on [it] if the attitude indicator is the spillable type, because its upset limits may have been exceeded or it may have […]

The AOPA has amassed a wealth of material on how pilots change as we grow older. Among other challenges aging pilots may face, decision-making skills may not be what they once were, and a brief section on decision-making caught our eye. As AOPA notes, “You have grown older and gotten wiser through experience. However, aging […]

The NTSB recently updated its rolling 10-year look-back infographics to reflect data from CY 2017, including the bar chart at right. This graphic compares the phases of flight in which personal-flying accidents occurred over the period, and shows maneuvering accidents are fatal roughly half the time.

The following information is derived from the FAA’s Service Difficulty Reports and Aviation Maintenance Alerts. Cessna 210L Centurion Intermittent Indications On liftoff, the green gear indicator light went off. The pilot tried to retract the gear, but nothing happened. He put the gear in the down position but did not get a safe indication. The […]