Aviation Safety

Aviation is a numbers-oriented activity. Sure; we can more or less safely operate an aircraft by disregarding some of them, but if we intend to aviate with some degree of reliability and repeatability—not to mention professionalism—we need to do it precisely, which means using some metric against which to measure our performance and the airplane’s. […]

With reference to Mike Hart’s article, “Landing On The Shore” in the October 2020 issue, I, too, have utilized many remote mountain airstrips, including many in his native Idaho. I, too, enjoy the adventure of new challenges, but have some questions about his tradeoffs between legal versus safe. In a sidebar, he documents the legality […]

As this issue was being finalized in early December, it was hard to avoid general-media stories about forthcoming Covid-19 vaccines. While the pandemic’s end may not be around the corner, it seems there’s at least a road map to such a goal, even if it might take most of 2021 to reach it. Since I’ve […]

Cessna 172M Skyhawk Burned Voltage Regulator The pilot reported an odor of smoke in the cockpit and returned to the departure airport. Examination revealed electrical charging system inoperative. Replaced voltage regulator (p/n VR6000). Part total time: Unknown Cessna 172P Skyhawk Unserviceable Regulator Technician suspects the voltage regulator (p/n DG3) went unsatisfactory and allowed the full […]

The evening’s mission was to fly myself and a colleague to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to attend a meeting the following morning. It was winter, with early sunsets, and we didn’t get airborne until well after dark, but I was night current, thanks to doing my instrument training at night, after work. I was close, but not […]

September 1, 2020, Walker, Minn. Piper PA-28-235 Cherokee 235 At about 2007 Central time, the airplane was destroyed when it collided with terrain while maneuvering near adverse weather. The solo pilot was fatally injured; flight conditions were unknown. The airplane departed Kirksville, Missouri, at about 1303 after adding 76.1 gallons of fuel, with an intended […]

Any pilot who has used a personal airplane for regular transportation has had to negotiate bad weather. By the time you accumulate more than 4500 hours of flight time, it’s likely you have dealt with a cold front or three, plus night IMC and a variety of other challenges. With that kind of flight experience […]

The modern general aviation airplane has data flowing from it like never before. The flood started with digital engine monitors. Then electronic flight decks came along, capable of storing a vast array of information about each flight for later retrieval and analysis, which is especially valuable in a training environment. Now it’s ADS-B, which literally […]

If you studied aviation accident reports as much as we do, one of the many phrases you’d often see is “failure to control airspeed.” It crops up in runway overruns a lot, but primarily appears when discussing in-flight loss of control accidents, of which there are enough the probable cause has earned its own acronym: […]

By the time you read this, my Debonair should have a freshly overhauled engine holding down its nose. The story of how all that came to be is best told with a few adult beverages, but the bottom line is I will soon have a new hole in my wallet and a zero-since-major-overhual IO-520. This […]