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Pilot Proficiency

Flight Chops: Flying Over Water in a Carbon Cub FX

If there’s one thing to take away from the latest episode of Flight Chops, it’s that Steve Thorne really enjoyed flying the Carbon Cub FX. It’s hard to miss him raving about the experience, and he also has nothing but praise for Backcountry Aviation‘s Patrick Romano, who took Chops on this week’s adventure as part […]

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How Flight Chops Went from Weekend Warrior Pilot to YouTube Celebrity

With 130,962 subscribers and counting, Steve Thorne is undoubtedly one of the most popular aviators on YouTube. Known to the aviation world as Flight Chops, he’s a self-described “weekend warrior pilot” who is basically living every pilot’s dream by flying a wide variety of airplanes and sharing his experiences with his fans. And while his […]

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Unusual Attitudes: Is the FAA Pulling a FAST One?

Remember those executive orders President Donald Trump issued early this year aimed at simplifying and cutting costs in government? My favorite was the one requiring agencies to repeal two existing regulations before creating a new one. Close on the heels of that came “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda,” which directed agencies to evaluate existing regulations […]

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Taking Wing: Flights of Fancy

Ah, summer, the season of the good life. The season of verdant, rolling hills speckled with lazily grazing cattle, of smoky backyard burgers and grilled corn on the cob, of golden beaches replete with giggling children, bronzed skin and the tangy bouquet of salt air and sunscreen. I hope you enjoyed the summer just passed […]

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Jumpseat: Never a Dull Moment

I am always thankful for the days when the only major task performed is to safely fly the airplane — and the biggest decision is whether to have the chicken or the steak. Those days of pure simplicity rarely occur. My trip back from London in the middle of May was no exception. The day […]

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I Learned About Flying from That: A Near Miss

They say a pilot never stops learning. But that’s not true. Complacency can set in right around the time we’ve forgotten what flaming tomatoes have to do with flying airplanes. We realize that most flights go just fine, and without a healthy spook now and then, we reach a learning plateau. My first spook hit […]

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Staying Afloat

Along with legions of other pilots, I learned to fly in Cessna Skyhawks, with six-pack instrument panels. Even when I moved on up to the 21st century and Garmin G1000-equipped 172SPs, the core aircraft remained familiar-similar V speeds, control yoke, nose wheel steering, big trim wheel. There was a comfort in the sameness.

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Black Swan Lessons

It was once believed that all swans were white. No one considered the possibility of black swans until a Dutch explorer discovered them in Australia in 1697. That is the nature of a Black Swan event: Its rare, has an extreme impact and is predictable in retrospect.

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Teetering on Madness

Instrument approaches are designed such that several divergent paths and procedures funnel into one of a few common designs. Almost every approach you fly will either be a cone of narrowing vertical and lateral guidance; or a staircase of stepdowns to a minimum altitude.

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Pilot in aircraft
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