Pilot Proficiency

Some of the best remote scenery is in northernmost Utah, well away from the hubbub of Salt Lake City. Dozens of mountain peaks, ranges, national forests and year-round resorts all make the mid-size city of Logan a nice destination. Logan-Cache airport offers everything you need to fly in and enjoy the area. While travel choices abound once youre there, flying back out is a different matter.

Now that winter is upon us, its a good time to look at cold-weather patterns and get an idea of what to expect. You may be familiar with the weather around your local airport, but your travels could take you into unusual corners of the United States, and perhaps into Canada. Winter brings a huge number of weather hazards to worry about, including the thunderstorms that plague the summer months, but by understanding how things are linked together, you can stay on top of things and remain safe.

En route to Leesburg Executive around 1:00 a.m. inside Dulles Class Bravo, I heard a controller ask a United flight, United XXX your choice 19R or 19C.The pilot came back with 19C and once cleared for the visual he responded, Cleared for visual. 19C United XXX. Over to tower, nighty-night dont let the bed bugs bite!

For this Throwback Thursday edition of Flight Chops, we’re going back to 2016 for a really cool example of how being an aviation YouTube celebrity leads to some pretty awesome adventures. Or, in this case, how two aviation YouTube celebrities received the opportunity to undergo U.S. Coast Guard training because they have some fans in […]

For this week’s Flight Chops throwback, we’re sharing a particularly funny video from 2014 about “the good, the bad and the barfing” of flying with passengers. As everyone’s favorite weekend warrior pilot Steve Thorne explained, “This video is really just about sharing experiences, both mine and some of my friends, kind of starting the conversation […]

On August 30, 2016, at 1801 Pacific daylight time, a Beechcraft A36 Bonanza was destroyed when it impacted the ground in a near vertical descent, likely as a result of a wake turbulence encounter on approach to landing at Reno-Tahoe International Airport in Reno, Nevada. The thing that caught my attention was that the pilot […]

Maybe it’s because I’ve screwed up more than most (living) pilots, but I often get calls from angry, confused or worried aviators: “Fiddling with my iPad and taxied across a hold-short line”; “Didn’t check notams and flew through a TFR”; “Assumed the other guy was PIC”; “Forgot about my flight-review (annual, physical, etc.) date”; “Blew […]

Imagine I asked you the following question during your next flight review: If you had the choice, would you rather fly directly through a line of embedded thunderstorms along your planned route of flight or use datalink radar imagery on your iPad to deviate around the weather system? You’d probably take a curious look at […]

A phalanx of restricted and Military Operating Areas confronts pilots heading north out of Los Angeles. Between sprawling Edwards Air Force Base and the Naval Air Weapons Station situated at water-free China Lake, a pilot studying the chart for the first time must think the way impassable. The alternatives are inconvenient doglegs: either fly up […]

I grew up and learned to fly on the snow-swept plains of Minnesota, but I really grew up in the crowded, smoggy skies over Southern California. It’s where I spent a couple of lean years flight instructing and freight dogging, making lifelong friends while scrambling to make ends meet on some vanishingly small paychecks. I […]