General

Most pilots like to think they do pretty well at the whole flying thing. In fact, surveys show that overall most people rate themselves as above average in performance. This is obviously impossible, as half of all pilots would have their performance rated as less than average. In his new book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell looks […]

Larry had a relaxed demeanor when he introduced himself in JFK Operations. He had been a Super 80 captain based in Boston for quite some time. Now he was transitioning to the 767/757. I was his check airman for the international qualification portion of his Operating Experience (OE). He had already completed the domestic portion […]

It was on a short final into Palo Alto in a Grumman Tiger that things began to go weird. I was a relatively new private pilot and it was my first flight in the Grumman; in fact, it was my checkout flight. For several months I had been making maintenance runs for my flying club […]

“This is my friend Lane. She flew in from Northern California for the party.” The speaker is my friend Tony, an entertainment lawyer and manager in Los Angeles, as he introduces me to the host and various other guests at the holiday party we’re attending. A party, I might add, at the Malibu beach house […]

Jabiru 250 (Photo: EAA / Jim Koepnick) Each month, Flying answers questions about the new sport pilot/light sport aircraft rule with assistance from the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), the authority on the opportunities available within the category commonly known as “sport pilot”: Q: My medical examination is next month. If I “fail,” I know I […]

A few months ago, the talk of the internet was a YouTube video of a stunt plane that lost a wing in flight and nevertheless managed to land safely. Many people in many countries sent me this video; the subject lines of the first few e-mails, which came from pilots, tended to marvel at the […]

When we took off in the rental Cessna 140, neither of us had any idea that before the flight was over, I would inadvertently become a “test pilot.” A test pilot is the first person to fly an airplane design that has never been flown by anyone else. Change the shape of any flight surface […]

In 1964, the first year I was eligible to vote, Barry Goldwater was my man and, besides, everybody in conservative, Republican, southern Ohio knew he was a shoo-in. Then Jerry Swart came up with a trip to Antigua in the British West Indies over election week and invited me to play copilot in the Beech […]

At the end of the year I renewed my annual Customs decal to expedite crossing back into the States on our frequent trips to Montreal, Canada. But this year the pleasurable anticipation of trips to Montreal was stifled by the announcement by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that, despite literally thousands of negative comments, […]

In late November Eclipse Aviation filed for bankruptcy, and investors, suppliers, Eclipse 500 owners and order holders lost well over $1 billion. There has never been a financial failure of this scale in the entire history of general aviation. Eclipse investors have lost hundreds of millions, but individuals are also big losers. Anybody who had […]