Pilot Proficiency

It was a whole new world to us. From the air, John and I saw the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Ocean, and what was to become our new hometown in California — all on our first cross-country after we got our licenses. We were hooked. From that time on, our lives were […]

Walk into any flight operation and theyll tell you that safety is the top priority. As of 2016, accident rates across the board from GA to commercial operations have fallen to an all-time low. This is thanks to the cooperative efforts of pilots, controllers, technicians, instructors, and the organizations that support them. Given the great improvements in safety and the stringent standards that apply to everything from replacement of a torque link bolt to the handoff of an aircraft by ATC, it might seem strange that were approaching the year 2020 and busted TAFs (Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts) are still a fact of life.

For decades, aircraft have used engine bleed air for a variety of purposes, spanning everything from engine starting to cabin pressurization to anti-icing. Here’s how engine bleed air works.

John Mugavin is made of rare stuff. This stocky, hugely talented, successful and gutsy guy is also as friendly and “old shoe” as they come. Mugavin is a familiar name around here for both the primo auto-body shop he owns and operates, and his fame as a dirt-track driver. Twenty-five years after building his first […]

I seldom experience déjà vu in my aerial life, though it lurks around every corner of my ground-bound existence. Enough changes from flight to flight to find something fresh in every airborne encounter, and the shift in perspective makes even old haunts seem entirely foreign when seen from above. But here and now, with the […]

If you ask a veteran airline pilot how many occasions he or she has given the command to evacuate an airplane during the course of their careers, most likely the answer will come silently with thumb and index finger forming a goose egg. The answer is a testament to the overall safety of our business. […]

Ferrying light single- and twin-engine airplanes around the world is not a job for the inexperienced or the bold. I am reminded of this fact several times a year on flights in remote parts of the globe. We all have read stories of pilots who push their luck and lose. Some don’t bother with getting […]

Despite our takeoff clearance, I advised Amarillo Tower that we would need to taxi off the runway. My wife couldn’t latch the door on our newest acquisition, a 1972 Piper ­Arrow II. It was my fault. Although our prior airplane, a Cherokee Six, had the same tortuous slam-bang locking system, I forgot that it was […]

A longtime pilot and savvy airplane broker at Lunken Airport named Jerry Swart used to say, “Sooner or later, every crook ends up at the airport.” When you think about it, airports do seem to be a magnet for an array of colorfully shady characters — maybe more so in the days before the “benefits” […]

1. SAT — Static air temperature (sometimes called true air temperature) is the temperature of undisturbed air; that is, the temperature you would read if you could suspend a thermometer out in the air without having the effects (temperature rise) of an airplane moving through the air nearby. In jets, SAT (aka OAT) is determined […]