Pilot Proficiency

In May 2016, I met a woman named Susan Mozena. When she learned that I fly, she told me her father, Charles d’Olive, had been an ace with five victories in World War I. My first thought was that my friend Javier Arango would have gotten a kick out of my having had a close […]

My infatuation with Stearmans began at 7 years old, when, while piled into the back of our Oldsmobile Cutlass station wagon on a family road trip to Florida, I spied a barnstormer in a brilliant blue-and-yellow airplane plying his trade from a nearby airstrip. I pleaded for my parents to let me take a ride, […]

A Missouri businessman, 54, and his dog, who accompanied him everywhere, died when his Piper Cherokee Six broke up in flight over Cuba, Missouri, in 2015. The 1,200-hour pilot had filed an instrument flight plan from Branson, Missouri, where he had a vacation home, northeastward to St. Louis. He was cruising at 5,000 feet. When […]

“There can be no compromise with safety.” “Safety is our No. 1 priority.” You hear these kinds of quotes all the time from well-meaning people — very often people like the secretary of transportation or the administrator of the FAA. The assertions are meant to be comforting, and they are — especially after a crash. […]

My wife and I stood up from the couch in the well-appointed office and shook hands with National Transportation Safety Board chairman Robert Sumwalt. We thanked him for taking the time to squeeze a visit into his packed schedule. The visit was the culmination of our personalized tour at NTSB headquarters, an opportunity not often […]

When I earned my private ticket in 1960, jet aircraft were still rather rare, even in the San Fernando Valley. My home field, Whiteman Air Park in Pacoima, California, was near Van Nuys and Lockheed airports, both of which were busy commercial fields. The local landing and departing traffic was mainly at piston-engine airspeeds, which […]

“Richard, you have failed this portion of the check ride. You will not be getting a type rating today.” My first thought was the designated examiner had made a mistake. “You have had full needle deflection twice on this approach,” he explained. I was dumbfounded. I had not seen full needle deflection — not once […]

As Steve Thorne told us recently, out of all the aircraft he has already flown and would love to fly, no plane comes close to a Spitfire for him. That one is clearly at the top of his “bucket list.” Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t more aircraft on his list, and as a result […]

Although the Morristown Six could easily be confused with a ’60s rock-and-roll band, the name actually applies to a standard instrument departure procedure, also known as a SID. SIDs look and feel different from traditional approach procedures, often including far more information arranged in a complex layout some pilots might find confusing. Air traffic control […]

I agree with your November Remarks that we should not give up on a drivers license medical, and you agree that for many of us, especially those with special issuances, BasicMed is a real improvement.My biggest bellyache is the safety pilot issue. AOPAs lobbyist, with whom Ive discussed it, says that even the FAA realizes how silly it is to say you need a third class medical to be second in command, but not to be PIC. Its possible the FAA will decide they can loosen that rule and still be within the law.