Pilot Proficiency

This August, just before the solar eclipse passed through the U.S., pilots from all over Utah flocked to southern Idaho into the zone of totality. The tower at Ogden Airport was busy, with a single controller handling tower and ground frequencies. As I taxied to the departure runway, several pilots called for clearances.

From reading Hadfields autobiography An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earthand listening to various interviews online, its clear Hadfield is no stranger to unexpected problems. From a seagull strike in an F/A-18 Hornet fighter at 500 knots a mere 50 feet above the water, to temporarily going blind during his first spacewalk because of contamination in his helmet, he has faced some unique situations.

Even after a couple hundred hours behind my Garmin GTN 650, there are still things I struggle to do properly. Chief among those is flying multiple approaches. Sure, we mostly have to do that in practice, but if you miss at a busy airport or the winds change after youve set up, you might find yourself needing to plug in that second approach, or third. If you were like me, youd get things hopelessly bollixed up before you just cleared the flight plan and started over.

If you’re unfamiliar with the YouTube aviation star known as Flight Chops, you have a lot of homework to do. Fortunately, we’re such big fans of pilot Steve Thorne’s work (and chops) that we’re proud to be sharing some of his greatest hits on our website, so you won’t have to go far to catch […]

In our new online series, The Finer Points, CFII Jason Miller gives you the information and tools you’ll need to become not just a better pilot, but a truly exceptional aviator. On August 27, 2006, a regional airliner taxied onto the wrong runway in the semi dark of morning and attempted a takeoff on a […]

One of my favorite jokes about the airline pilot profession involves a mother who brings her wide-eyed, grade-school-age son into the cockpit for a visit. After the awestruck boy is given his tour, the mother asks her son if he would like to be an airline pilot when he grows up. The captain interjects and […]

I graduated from college in 1965. The Vietnam War was in full swing, and any able-bodied male who was not being educated was being drafted. I could have gone to graduate school, but instead decided to take my chances. I moved in with a couple of old friends in Palo Alto, California. Having a fancy […]

Walking into the FBO in Charlottesville, Virginia, I hear, “I don’t like your stuff. I used to like you, but I don’t anymore. You are drinking way too much Kool-Aid.” I am a little taken aback by this tirade. I look up to see a NetJets captain. “You make this sound way better than it is,” […]

On a cold night in ­early spring, I took off from Lunken Airport in 72B, my beloved (I think) Cessna 180. I came back to climb power at 500 feet agl and the engine began running rough, missing and losing power — which sort of caught my attention. So, I pulled on the carburetor heat […]

I don’t know about you, but I sure love being proved right. Lord knows it happens rarely enough at home, so I have to look for small victories elsewhere. As it so happens, writing a ­monthly column for a widely read ­aviation magazine makes for a potentially rich vein of retrospective sagacity. Thus I was […]