Aviation Safety

Several years ago, two active-duty Air Force pilots (one an instructor) rented a Cessna 172 in Del Rio, Texas, so they could take their dates for a flight. The two pilots sat up front with two passengers in the back seat and a heavy load of fuel in the wings. (In case youre thinking ahead, the aircraft was 323 pounds over its maximum allowable gross weight and 3.1 inches beyond its allowable aft C.G. limit.)

They took off and proceeded to perform aerobatic maneuvers at very low altitudes while also buzzing boats on the nearby lake. They performed at least one complete aileron roll, abrupt pull-ups, very abrupt level-offs at low altitude and hammerhead type turns.

The last maneuver w…

In accident reports, the NTSB may call it maneuvering flight, but most of the time it has a more colorful name: buzzing – or flat hatting to use a World War II term.

Most pilots have been guilty of it. Some dont get bitten, some learn the hard way and live to tell the story. Some find they fail the final exam. Not everyone, it appears, is as lucky as I was to survive a crash while buzzing.

The AOPA Air Safety Foundations Nall Report says buzzing in single-engine airplanes continues to be one of the largest producers of fatal accidents. Furthermore, the report says, 34.5 percent of the fatal maneuvering accidents resulted from maneuvering during low, slow flight. That remin…

One of the results of poorly assessing the risk involved with flying is reflected by the number of weather-related accidents that consistently grace NTSB logs, even in the face of widely available real-time meteorological data. A study of the accident record demonstrates that the raging debate about human versus mechanical observers largely misses the point.

Sure, human observers are superior in most respects and automated weather sometimes gives goofy and erroneous reports. On the other hand, automated weather stations allow observations from far more locations than was affordable for staffed stations. Both people and machines have strengths and weaknesses, but the more immediate point…

As pilot-in-command you are responsible for the safety of your passengers. Although commercial operations specify that passengers be given a safety briefing, Part 91 is considerably less specific. That leaves it up to the pilot to ensure passengers are thoroughly briefed – and that includes much more than telling them how to buckle the seat belt.

The briefing should begin before entering the aircraft ramp. Have a means for positive control over your guests. Teenage boy scouts playing football on a ramp are not under positive control.

You need to ensure that your guests dont endanger themselves, nor do they block or impede other aircraft operations, nor distract other operators, nor…

Go to the index of any publication devoted to flight training and try to find the word accident. Hint: Dont look between accelerated stall and adverse yaw, because you wont find it there.

This apparently dirty word is rarely used in any pilot training manual or handbook. If it does appear, it will usually be part of nebulous advice such as safety is no accident or a reference to the regulation that accidents must be reported promptly.

In fact, accident training is not required for student pilots and, for all practical purposes, none is provided. This is the primary reason why most pilots are not familiar with the circumstances and trends that comprise the general aviation a…

Put yourself in this situation, for a moment. You are cranking along on a cross-country, an IFR cross-country. For the moment you are VFR on top with a thick solid layer below. You are flying single pilot IFR with no VFR alternates within range.

Things are going along fairly smoothly, then trouble starts. The first indication on your ammeter/loadmeter goes unnoticed. You make a radio call to ATC they report as fading badly. The VOR pegs to one side of the instrument. The alternator warning light comes on. Electrical failure. That unplanned close-by VFR airfield would look pretty good about now.

ATC does notice that your transponder reply has vanished, but they cant call you. You hav…

The anniversary of one of the most publicized general aviation accidents ever came and went, and almost on cue the NTSB released its official report on the crash that killed John F. Kennedy Jr. Together, they made a powerful reminder that one of the earliest identifiable pitfalls of flying is still with us today. Aptly named the graveyard spiral, it has taken its toll of lives since the invention of the airplane.

Like its cousin the tailspin, the entry is insidious – resulting from spatial disorientation – and the conclusion is often fatal. The entry pattern associated with either maneuver is similar, but the resultant maneuvering track quite different. Real-life testing and experience,…

To get the most out of this article, read it with your eyes closed. Sound silly? Okay, lets apply the same philosophy to radio communications. To get the most out of your $50,000 nav/comm stack, make all transmissions with the volume turned down.

Youll find the silence quite relaxing, no stress from competing pilots on CTAF or confusing instructions from nattering air traffic controllers. Just you, your machine, and the cosmic bliss of free flight. If you were a seagull, someone would write a book about you. But youre not. Youre a pilot and, unless youre knocking about grass fields in a J-3 Cub with no radio, youll need to improve those radio skills.

The good pilot never stops…

It was a flying day. The sky had not a single cloud, the temperature was 78 degrees. It was April 1st and I was an 18-year-old April fool with a freshly minted private pilot license.

I actually flew twice that day. The first flight of the day was just not enough, so I had to go for more. The afternoon sun was dipping to the west as I headed out in the 152 with my passenger, a friends roommate.

What a grand time we had zooming over the hills and valleys of the desert right out to a large lake north of town. Then, the foolishness began to kick in. Wanna get a closer look at that boat? I yelled above the roar of the engine. Sure! she hollered back.

So I dipped lower, getting us…

As a 3,000-hour pilot with a CFII rating, I am reasonably comfortable in the cockpit in either the right or left side. However, when I havent flown in a while I like to go out and fly by myself and run through some maneuvers as well as get in some short- and soft-field takeoffs and landings before I take passengers.

One day in the early summer I found myself in a situation where I needed to fly my wife from Portland, Ore., to Spokane, Wash., on a Sunday. I had not flown our Cessna 172 for about four months, so on the Saturday before I decided to go out and knock off some of the rust and enjoy the kind of sunny day that we here in Oregon hope makes up for living in the rain the other eigh…