Aviation Safety

Pilots in the traffic pattern worry enough about looking for other airplanes that many ignore helicopters, even when tower controllers call out the traffic. The reasoning may be something like: They dont fly patterns that interfere with airplanes, so theyre not a collision threat, and theyre so much smaller than an airliner, how bad could a wake vortex really be?

The risk of collision is something only the pilot in the pattern can assess, but the threat of wake vortices from helicopters is actually much more ominous than most pilots realize.

Real-world research into the effect of helicopter rotor vortices on general aviation aircraft shows that some of the characteristics are the sa…

Not many people would justify the time and expense involved in being a proficient general aviation pilot without their spouse supporting the activity. While many spouses are pilots themselves, a great number are merely participants who enjoy the travel and other benefits of flying, without having been bitten by the flying bug itself.

These preferred passengers share a few traits. Theyre usually willing and able to help with some of the housekeeping chores like folding maps, watching for traffic and looking up frequencies. Some may take a pinch-hitter course or a bit of flight instruction in case the pilot someday gets a bad batch of oysters. Virtually all describe their pilot-in-command…

Year after year, airline flights operated under FAR Part 121 get top billing for safest category of flight. This should come as no surprise, considering the many well-known safety advantages enjoyed by airline pilots.

They receive the best training around, including high-fidelity, full-motion simulator training not available to most GA pilots. Their job performance is closely scrutinized by their peers, by management, and by the FAA. An average line holder flies 700 to 900 hours every year, so they generally enjoy a high level of currency and comfort with the airplane they fly.

The hardware is often the best that Boeing or Airbus offers, with better performance margins and greater…

The checks in the mail.

Your airplane will be ready Tuesday.

Im from the FAA and Im here to help you!

Three of the Great Lies – but with the last, you actually have some control over what happens. If your encounter with the FAA involves a ramp check, there are several things you can do to protect yourself, including knowing what an inspector may and may not do, that may help it it go easier.

Getting ramp checked is one of the great fears of all pilots. Even the average, law-abiding pilot has a gut-level dread that no matter how righteous his intentions, the FAA inspector will find something wrong with either the pilot or the plane. Many fear that they will either get tem…

It was almost sunset when I came out to the field. I needed to pick up my Jepps that I had left in the airplane. I came out the side of the hangar, facing the runways. It was then that I noticed the Beech Travelair sitting like a duck, bedded down for the night, landing gear neatly recessed into the wheel wells. Gear-up on our least-used runway.

There were red caution strobes all around the Travelair, so incoming traffic (rare at night) would see the bird. I picked up my flashlight and went out for a look. Streaks of oil, rubber and metal trailed out behind the twin. A classic gear-up, but why? I put on my sleuth hat and looked around. People, parts, position and paper – the classic ai…

One clear, smooth night about 35 years ago, I was flying a load of passengers over Virginias Blue Ridge Mountains enroute from Dayton, Ohio, Washington, D.C. Suddenly, the Convair started losing altitude – big time. The airspeed dropped 60 knots in what seemed like just a couple of seconds.

I jammed the throttles as far forward as I could get them, heard the throaty roar of the two Pratt & Whitney engines as they ramped up to full power – but absolutely nothing happened.

I didnt know it at the time, but the combination of winds and jagged terrain below were teaching me my first lesson about mountain flying.

Just as suddenly as it began, the airplane stopped descending and righted…

Although pilots do their best to minimize the risk they assume every time they switch on the magnetos, somewhere in the back of most pilots heads is a tiny voice urging them to watch out for the unexpected. Some may consider this self-doubt and banish it from their consciousness. Others embark on a near-manic attempt to silence it through endless training, hardware and conservative decision-making.

Though most pilots generally fall somewhere in the middle, there are those occasional flights where almost anyone may be tempted to shout down the doubt or defer the flight because something doesnt feel right. Usually those flights pass without incident. Occasionally they dont.

The voic…

Among pilots, the perception of whats safe is forever clouded by the tree-falling-in-the-woods syndrome. If no ones there to hear it, does it still make a thud?

The aviation safety corollary has to be the accident stats numbers game. When a trend seems to surface, was it there all along or are we just noticing it because we happened to be looking?

Such may very well be the case with the FAAs current safety problem child – runway incursions. According to data collected by the agency, runway incursions are at an all-time high and rising.

Worse, most of them are committed by general aviation pilots, giving the impression that the average Bonanza or Piper owner is bumbling around…

One of the most fatal types of accidents in general aviation is structural failure, in which the chance of death is nearly 100 percent.

Luckily, wings dont come off aircraft very often. But when it happens, it will be catastrophic and probably unsurvivable. Im shocked while listening to some flight instructors who quietly advertise that they would teach aerobatics regardless of the aircrafts certification, citing that the aircraft had a safety margin so it wasnt a big deal.

It is a big deal. In fact, theres a rental/training aircraft at a nearby flight school that is so bent that it wont fly straight and level, and students regularly complain that its stall is so unpredictabl…

Bewildered, I began filling out a Notice Of Disapproval – the proverbial pink slip – for a commercial pilot applicant. Up to the point of the final landing for the flight test it had been a picture perfect checkride. The applicant had performed all the maneuvers, including the go-around, quite well. His smoothness, accuracy and judgment were to be applauded. Surprisingly, it was the second performance of the go-around maneuver of the day that caused the unsatisfactory performance.

We were operating out of a non-towered airport the day of the test. While on short final for a landing, another airplane – with a flight instructor on board – pulled out onto the runway in front of us. We were…