Pilot Proficiency

Fronts in TAFs and weather briefings often mean a day of delays and canceled plans. Considering the impact that they have on flight operations, we should understand fronts. Lets study them so you can make a good guess about the resulting weather. Our modern knowledge of fronts began around 1910 in the Bergen School of Meteorology in Norway. Their early work laid out the mathematics of forecasting and described fronts, showing that they are defined by a change in air mass density. Changes in wind speed, humidity, or pressure are all secondary.

Jeff Van West is one of my favorite modern-day aviation writers. His article, Seeing Double in the November issue is a fine example of Jeff taking us by the hand through important, but oft overlooked and esoteric aspects of our IFR life. But his use of the word declination instead of the correct word, variation, is a fingernail on the blackboard kind of irritant, if you remember blackboards. I have these old yellowed books that I studied in the 50s: AF Manual 51-40, Air Navigation Vol 1, by the Department of the Air Force (1959), page viii, and The American Flight Navigator by John Dohm (1958) page 324.

I recently got a question from a reader: When you are flying in clouds and the ride is bumpy, is it bumpy because its cloudy or is it cloudy because its bumpy? Good question. Turbulence is often approached from a rather pragmatic approach in aviation, and that often leaves pilots with questions about where it fits in with weather patterns. Lets look at this piecemeal. From a meteorological perspective, turbulence is bumpiness caused by flight into an area where wind is changing over a small distance.

Think about all of the decisions a pilot makes every moment he or she is in command — choices that must fit together just so to ensure a safe flight. Sometimes the choices are simple, like correcting for a gusty crosswind in a light trainer. Other times they’re considerably more challenging, like successfully controlling an […]

Through the years, I have enjoyed relating to ILAFFT stories in Flying and have even corrected a few bad habits based on what I’ve read. I thought there would come a time when the lessons I personally learned while flying would no longer translate to GA flying, and my window of opportunity to submit to […]

POINTS TO PONDER: The guiding principle of a crossing restriction is that the last ATC clearance has precedence over the previous clearance. When the route or altitude is amended, the controller will restate altitude restriction. “If altitude to maintain is changed or restated, whether prior to departure or while airborne, and previously issued altitude restrictions […]

Cessna 162 Zionsville, Indiana / Injuries: 2 Minor The flight instructor reported that, due to known thunderstorms northwest of the airport, he planned to remain in the traffic pattern during the instructional flight. Automated weather equipment located at the airport also reported lightning in the vicinity of the airport immediately before the flight departed with […]

Cirrus SR22T Xenia, Ohio / Injuries: 1 Fatal The airline transport pilot was repositioning the airplane to its home base after maintenance was completed at a repair station. The pilot filed an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan with a cruise altitude of 9,000 feet mean sea level (msl). The en route portion of the […]

Tamarack Aerospace is in the final stages of FAA certification for the first commercially viable installation of its Active Technology Load Alleviation System (ATLAS), which allows wingtip extensions with winglets to be installed without increasing the load on the wing. The installation includes Tamarack Active Camber Surfaces (TACS) on the outboard portions of the trailing […]

The pilot’s loss of airplane control,” said the ­National Transportation Safety Board, “was due to his diverted ­attention to the canopy opening in flight.” At what point the canopy opened ­completely is not clear, but several witnesses described the airplane rocking sharply from side to side and oscillating sharply in pitch during the takeoff roll, […]