Aviation Safety

Several pilots to whom I’ve given check rides or flight reviews in recent years were willing to needlessly tempt fate and accept a takeoff or landing clearance in situations where a potential encounter with wake turbulence was a real possibility; I’ve had to stop them from taking off or landing. Nonchalance, carelessness and ignorance—or combinations […]

Prior to the advent of jet transports like the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 in the late 1950s, what we’ve come to know as wake turbulence was often dismissed as “propwash.” As heavier and heavier aircraft, like the Lockheed C-5 and the Boeing 747, grew in numbers, the FAA, NASA, the U.S. Air Force and […]

Editor’s note: Last month’s issue included a cover story on wake turbulence and how we may encounter it even when our training suggests it shouldn’t be a factor in our operations. This article is a companion piece, featuring a deeper dive into wake turbulence characteristics and behavior to help us predict where it is and […]

In a recent issue, we highlighted an SA definition from the U.S. Coast Guard: “Situational awareness is the ability to identify, process, and comprehend the critical elements of information about what is happening to the team with regards to the mission. More simply, it’s knowing what is going on around you.” (emphasis in the original). […]

I worked with the NBAA Safety Committee Single-Pilot Work Group to assemble the association’s Risk Management Guide For Single-Pilot Light Business Aircraft, pictured at right. One of the new concepts in the Guide is one more risk-management acronym: TEMA, a variation on “team,” which stands for Transfer, Eliminate, Mitigate and Accept. Highlights include these elements: […]

There have been numerous studies about aeromedical issues and aging pilots. Reviewing and commenting on them is beyond this article’s scope, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Air Safety Institute (ASI) has published a good summary report on aging pilots that includes recommendations for dealing with aging issues. The report, the cover of which […]

Milestones are something we often observe to bring back good memories or special occasions, like birthdays and anniversaries. We may also use them as an occasion to reflect on our successes and failures, and to measure our life progress. Few other activities as aviation count ratings obtained, hours flown, accident-free operation and other parameters as […]

Dynon’s Skyview HDX EFIS solutions for certified aircraft include a pair of EFIS displays in 10-inch and 7-inch form factors. The units can be installed individually, as shown at right, or in pairs and provide many more operational capabilities than just primary flight instrumentation. They’re not “flight decks” like a Garmin G1000 and require an […]

The Evolution E5 is Aspen’s entry-level electronic flight instrument. Like the Garmin G5 stack, it combines an artificial horizon and a heading indicator but, unlike with two G5s, these capabilities are in one unit. That complicates the redundancy consideration somewhat, but the E5 also incorporates a backup battery. In my installation, it’s likely an additional […]

Garmin’s G5 can be configured as an artificial horizon or directional gyro and mounts into the same instrument panel openings as the removed mechanical instruments. A stack of two, as depicted at right, helps eliminate the vacuum system and “offers reversionary display capability plus the added redundancy of dual ADAHRS and dual backup batteries,” according […]