Aviation Safety

Avionics manufacturers have a GPS navigator for every purpose and budget. At this springs Aircraft Electronics Association show in Atlanta, yet more models were announced, overhanging the market with unprecedented choices for owners.

GPS sales are clearly hot, but only a small percentage of the GA fleet is equipped with certified GPS. Our best estimate is not greater than 10 percent have IFR navigators.

Many owners are fence sitters still skeptical about the value of spending six grand or more for an IFR navigator that seems to perform only a bit better than a 10-year-old loran. The reasons are many: the cost of admission, lack of utility, beefs about operating complexity and worries…

In 1991, my need for an airplane larger than my Cessna 150 led to a search that ended with a 1959 Cessna 172 my A&P father located near his home in Texas.

The plane obviously needed some cosmetic work, but it fit my meager budget and I was promised it would be sold with a fresh annual inspection. The annual inspection sealed the deal. I figured it would at least be safe to fly in spite of its dowdy appearance, which Id deal with as resources allowed.

My father took care of completing the sale and flew the 172 the 15 or so minutes to his home airport. On landing, he got the first of a whole string of surprises the airplane would reveal in the coming months.

At touchdown on the shor…

Success at a social function is judged by your entrance. If you stumble over the doorstep and land face first in the guacamole, youll definitely get noticed but probably not invited back.

Entering a traffic pattern requires the same dont-trip-over-your-joystick finesse. Unfortunately, there is no Emily Post guide for pattern etiquette, and it shows. Monitor the Unicom at any busy uncontrolled airport and youll hear pilots announcing modified downwinds (with no hint of what that modification is), the cursing that results from one pilot cutting another one off and multiple runways in use, even if theres only one strip of pavement.

Think its not a problem? Look at this issues Pre…

Some flights just dont seem to go right. Your tongue turns to mush when you key the mic. You keep chasing altitude and cant quite get the trim set right. Your dyslexia acts up every time you read back a frequency.

Training and attitude help keep the bad flights away and hold the mistakes to a minimum, but recent experience – the mark of a proficient pilot – may be the single biggest determinant of how easily you can keep misfortune at bay.

Recent experience means more than just how many hours youve logged lately. To be truly proficient, you have to revisit your operating handbook from time to time to review critical speeds and procedures. Check the weight and balance occasionally, e…

Most pilots know that one of the major causes of fatal accidents in light aircraft is continued VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). But many are surprised that more than one quarter of those accidents involve instrument-rated pilots, according to the AOPA Air Safety Foundation. You might think that the idea of an instrument-rated pilot dying in a VFR into IMC accident is oxymoronic. Unfortunately, youd only be half right.

So why is it that pilots who are qualified and current to fly in the goo turn themselves into smoking holes trying to scud-run through less-than-marginal weather? There are several factors at work here, including attitude, lack of foresight,…

Safety is simple. Use the right tool, the right person and the right procedures for the job. In well-maintained certified airplanes the right tool is usually there. The pilot presumably has been trained to fly the airplane and navigate competently.

Sometimes, however, the third leg of the safety stool is missing. The right procedures for most operations and even some emergencies are specified in the aircraft manual, but sometimes pilots arent familiar with the proper procedures, or sometimes they use procedures from other aircraft or other sources that arent proper for the aircraft and environment in which theyre flying.

Failure to use the proper procedures is an important finding i…

When the pilot woke up, he was soaking wet, and cold rain was pouring down on him. He couldnt see out of one eye. His leg and arm were killing him. There were pieces of something in his mouth. He took them out. They were two of his front teeth.

It was about dawn. As he looked around, things were still fuzzy, but he realized that he was in his Comanche. The windshield was broken out, the cabin door was open, and they were sitting in a muddy cornfield.

Six months later the pilot, who also was a flight instructor, was telling the story to a group of people at the airport. How hed changed. His face was heavily scarred now, and he needed a cane to get around.

He was a poignant reminde…

A lot of people who attend airshows think of the performers as death- defying daredevils. It may come as a surprise (although I hope not), that its just not so.

As they race along in brightly painted aircraft, it may seem like theyre mixing aerial ballet with kamikaze maneuvers, but performers know the risks – and know how to minimize them. Airshow flying might be our livelihoods, but its not worth our lives to take what may be inherently risky flying and make it idiotically dangerous.

First off, its important to note that regulations dont create safe pilots. For example, I dont think spin training should be required of all pilots, but I think anyone whos serious about being a s…

Since purchasing our plane, my partner and I have been doing a great deal of flying together. We live in Minnesota, which means that for a significant part of the year, the days are very short. As a consequence, this winter we did a lot of night flying.

On one of our first trips – Minneapolis to Ely, Minn., on a lovely clear winter night – my non-instrument rated partner was at the controls. As we approached Ely from the southeast, we realized that we would be a bit high for the approach. Since we had the place to ourselves, we decided to simply execute a right 360-degree standard-rate turn to give him time to descend to a more comfortable altitude.

As we turned away from the airport,…

It was that time of year when spring was trying to become summer and I had an opportunity to fly a volunteer blood run with my clubs Cessna 172. I set out for the 300-mile round trip with my friend, also a pilot. Both of us are 400-hour VFR pilots.

Conditions at the time of departure were 3,500 feet broken, which was forecast to hold throughout our trip.

Forty miles from our destination airport the holes in the broken layer had closed and the ceiling was beginning to lower. We were to enter a military control area in the next 20 miles and were just barely able to maintain the minimum altitude we needed to transit the area.

Fortunately, the military control tower accommodated us th…