Aviation Safety

It’s an article of faith among seasoned pilots that many of their less-experienced peers either don’t know or don’t care enough to use the rudder properly. The frequent result, they point out, is uncoordinated flight, too often leading to the classic loss-of-control in-flight accident (LOC-I): a stall/spin, without enough altitude to recover. While that debate […]

Aviation has always been a breeding ground for technological, social and economic change. Many of these changes, such as the jet airliner, shrank the world and transformed how we see it. The airliner’s influence may be on the wane, however, as challenges in the workplace and the effects of climate change—two major factors among many […]

After a while, even brand-new pilots start racking up logbook entries in a series of different aircraft. At first, we may not care, grateful for the flight time, and not pay much attention to how each aircraft has its own character. Each one also has its own story, reflected in your pilot’s logbook and those […]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the article “Fixing Your Float” in the September 2020 issue. As you accurately point out, the “desired airspeed” over the numbers is not always in keeping with the numbers published by the airplane manufacturers. As is mentioned, the optimal approach airspeed varies with airplane design and weight. Yet another variable affecting stall […]

It’s not a secret that the Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on many industries and businesses. Aviation generally and general aviation specifically haven’t been immune, for which the impossibility of social distancing in a typical cockpit is at least partially to blame. It’s been a rough few months for the overall industry, and the downturn […]

Beech 1900C Internal Short After takeoff, the red landing gear in-transit light remained illuminated and the gear would not fully retract. The gear did extend to the down-and-locked position using the emergency system and the flight landed without incident. Examination found the right main landing gear weight-on-wheels switch (p/n 444EN49-6) was internally shorted, tripping the […]

After an extended period at the paint shop, during which my 1976 Cessna 210L Centurion sat outside in the central Florida weather awaiting additional work for a few weeks, the airplane was finally finished. I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised that the plane looked so great and I was eager to take it […]

July 1, 2020, Brainerd, Minn. Piper PA-18A-150 Super Cub The pilot was receiving flight instruction in his newly purchased airplane to satisfy insurance requirements. During the flight, the two decided they would land in a hay field behind the instructor’s house, touching down beyond a ditch. After touchdown, the pilot “noticed trees at the end […]

These pages regularly urge new private pilots to go on to earn their instrument rating. Especially if you ever want to use a personal airplane for regular, reliable transportation, the rating is pretty much mandatory. If you’re content to only fly on good-weather days in search of expensive hamburgers and to abandon the peace-of-mind the […]

There was a time when the compleat pilot needed to maintain a subscription to the FAA’s Airport/Facility Directory in addition to sectionals, instrument charts and approach plates. The electronic flight bag application running on a cellphone or tablet has all but made the paper versions of these charts obsolete, yet a pilot sometimes needed to, […]