Pilot Proficiency

The Hawker jet was descending through 13,500 feet, near the end of a 34-minute hop from Dayton, Ohio, to Akron Fulton Airport, when one of the passengers leaned through the cockpit door. “You guys know where we’re going, right?” It was a joke, but it wasn’t far off the mark. The National Transportation Safety Board’s […]

Just a little bit lower.” Those words are a great way to star in an NTSB accident report (right up there with “watch this”), since they usually precede a dangerous maneuver. While low passes are certainly not a new ­invention, the motivation for them seems to have evolved lately, and we can thank the smartphone. […]

Pressure Altitude Density Altitude Example: Pressure altitude = 6,000 feet Outside air temp = 13 degrees C ISA (@ 6,000 feet) = 3 degrees C {from rule of thumb: (-2 degrees x each 1,000 feet msl) + 15 = ISA} (13 – 3) x 120 + 6,000 = 7,200 feet density altitude Indicated Altitude True […]

I was a 30-year-old 600-hour instrument instructor with half ownership in a well-equipped Piper Archer II and a good job to pay the bills. I felt I had a good understanding of my personal minimums and promised myself never to break them — a policy that has paid off many times. But that almost wasn’t the […]

For the past 30 years, aviation has benefited from traffic collision avoidance systems (TCAS) installed in large airplanes. The newest version of this safety technology, TCAS II, provides aural and visual warnings to pilots as well as resolution advisories instructing, for example, one airplane to climb and another to descend to avoid a midair collision. […]

The note is correct as written-and an IFR GPS alone is fine. Now follow me down a logical rabbit hole to understand why, as well as see how GPS and digital tech in general are changing how we fly IFR.

While we certainly dont need to examine weather accidents to remind us that weather can be a killer, reviewing them can be a good teacher. The accidents well review attracted only a couple paragraphs in the local newspaper and were quickly forgotten, but every incident has the potential to save lives. Well try to understand their story by digging into radar and weather data and poring through the NTSB archives and try to find just how these pilots got themselves in trouble and what lessons we can learn.

The old saying tells us you cant be cleared for takeoff until the gross weight of the paperwork exceeds that of the aircraft. That hasnt changed much since Flight Service received reports on Teletypes necessitating cryptic abbreviations to conserve precious bandwidth on 75-baud lines. Calling Flight Service used to be required to file a flight plan and get a weather review from a specialist with information unavailable anywhere else. Technology has changed all that.

Displaced thresholds are just for landing in the direction of the displacement. So back in 2008 when the 4800-foot runway was displaced 1500 feet from both ends, the landing distance either way was 3300 feet. You may roll out, or even touch down and stop, on the displacement for the opposite direction.

The atmosphere in our normally gray conference room was, well, colorful, and the manager was wishing he hadn’t OK’d my idea for an informal meeting with local traffic helicopter and fixed-wing pilots after a recent and highly publicized accident. On that frigid, foggy morning, a pilot and a female ­reporter lifted off in a Bell […]