Pilot Proficiency

Speed Limits: In the United States — Mach 1 10,000 feet msl or above — Unrestricted (but not more than Mach 1) Below 10,000 feet msl — 250 kias Class B airspace — Unrestricted at or above 10,000 feet msl, 250 kias below 10,000 feet msl Beneath Class B or in VFR corridor through Class […]

Throughout the years of my musings with this magazine, I have espoused the attribute of mundane in regard to a safe and successful airline trip; the simulator is reserved as the venue for the exact opposite. None of my colleagues would wish for an inflight malady just to quell the monotony, but there are moments […]

“We’re going to be in the Hudson.” It was Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger announcing they were going to dead stick US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River. It is a story most of us are familiar with. After the loss of both engines in their A320, Capt. Sullenberger and First Officer Jeff Skiles first […]

In the 10 years I’ve been writing for Flying, I’ve told the stories of heroic, ridiculous, amusing, embarrassing, illegal, skilled, humanitarian, negligent and wonderful things we pilots do — stories about me, as well as people I’ve known as instructors, FAA inspectors and examiners, or simply as fellow pilots. In short, I’ve tried to be […]

The late afternoon sky was clear and the air crisp. Light spread itself evenly across the landscape in the absence of clouds, and colorful fugitive leaves danced across the runway ahead of a mild, quartering crosswind. The relative calm outside the cockpit of my Cessna trainer dueled in graphic opposition to the inner excitement I […]

“Is there a way to compute the strength of up- and downdrafts based on the amount of increase or decrease in airspeed? If I’m cruising along at an indicated 135 knots with a constant power setting, maintaining altitude and see my airspeed decrease to 110 knots as I pitch up to overcome downdrafts while maintaining […]

Attitude and heading reference systems (AHRS) have been providing heading and attitude information with greater accuracy and reliability than traditional mechanical gyros for years now. But how do these solid-state systems deliver this information, and how do they do so using increasingly smaller and lighter equipment? Micro Electronics An AHRS’s key features include ­micro-electronic mechanical gyros, […]

I’d just sunk my hands into a gloriously gluey lump of flour and water when the wall phone rang. Yes, I still have a landline, bake bread, can pickles, put up preserves and make mud pies. I grabbed the receiver with my grossly sticky hand and spent most of a half-hour listening to a young […]

Piper PA-12 Burnet, Texas/Injuries: 2 Uninjured The flight instructor of the amphibious float-equipped airplane reported that after an instructional lesson, while returning to the airport, the student pilot was too low “while turning base leg” of the traffic pattern so the student pilot moved the throttle forward to add power, but the engine did not […]

Beech A36 Kernersville, North Carolina/Injuries: 3 Fatal The private pilot had recently purchased the airplane, and it was more complex than the airplane he had flown previously. The accident airplane was also equipped with an upgraded avionics suite. The pilot had practiced loading and flying instrument approaches with the new avionics during recent flights with […]