Aviation Safety

When I earned my instrument rating many years ago, it was common to add the notation “No SIDS, No STARs” in the comments block of an IFR flight plan. This was primarily because these procedures were published in a separate book from instrument approaches at the time, and it wasn’t common for private operators to […]

Thinking back to my traditional aviation weather courses, I realized they didn’t address intense wind events where the agency of high wind all by itself wreaks its own special form of havoc. This year there were numerous high wind events — several haboobs in Arizona, a derecho in the Midwest, and wind-driven fires in California, […]

If you’re not familiar with Alaskan aviation, an analogy might be to compare it to operations in the Lower 48, but with more weather and terrain, and fewer paved airports. Because general aviation often is literally the only transportation available, external pressures to complete a proposed flight can be much greater. Predictably, the accident rates […]

I enjoy reading your journal. I just read your article, “Steep Turns,” in the September issue. Although it is well-written, I have an issue about the description that the horizontal lift component “actually” turns an airplane on page 9.  As written in “Emergency Maneuver Training” by Rich Stowell, the primary turn control is done by elevator. […]

A recent feature article first appearing in Kentucky’s Louisville Courier-Journal then picked up by USA TODAY and Yahoo News carried the headline, “Rogue pilots trafficked a billion dollars in cartel drugs across US while no one watched.” The lengthy piece detailed how “California businessman” Robert Carlson used private aircraft to transport illegal drugs throughout the U.S. […]

Bellanca 17-30A Super Viking Stretched And Fatigued At touchdown, the nose landing gear failed and partially collapsed. Examination revealed it appears the bearing rod end (p/n 198001-2) experienced a fatigue failure. The rod end failed at a point where the threads and AN316-4R nut meet, shearing even with the nut face. Rod end threads were […]

As a student pilot, I did a lot of reading when I couldn’t fly, including the popular aviation magazines and whatever else I could find laying around the FBO. A little knowledge can be a bad thing, of course, and so it was with my understanding of something called a “missed approach.” The relevant article […]

August 1, 2020, Seiling, Okla. Piper PA-28R-201 Arrow III/V At about 0130 Central time, the airplane was substantially damaged during an aborted takeoff attempt. The pilot and three passengers were not injured. The pilot later reported confirming takeoff weight was below the maximum and adequate fuel was aboard. He calculated the airplane required 1700 to […]

I’ve previously referred to scenes from Ernest K. Gann’s book “Fate Is The Hunter” in these pages. The combined autobiography and ground school traces his flying career from DC-2s over the eastern U.S., C-47s and C-87s over the North Atlantic during WWII, and DC-4s on the Honolulu/San Francisco run after the war. One of the […]

As the Covid-19 pandemic’s effects on aviation stretched into the final calendar quarter of 2020, the FAA on October 1 released a final rule extending deadlines for “persons who have been unable to meet certain requirements during the national emergency” surrounding the disease. The updated special federal aviation regulation (SFAR 118-2) was scheduled to be […]