Pilot Proficiency

Grumble, grumble. It was a bad morning around the breakfast table at the Hilton near Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. There were three crews altogether. Two of us pilots were billeted at the nearby Holiday Inn, definitely not to be confused with a ­Ritz-Carlton, and we’d driven over to join the others. It was a […]

It was a little after noon on a cloudy December day when a B36TC Bonanza with five aboard climbed out of Baker City, in northeastern Oregon, bound for Butte, Montana, 234 nm away. A few minutes after takeoff the pilot called Salt Lake Center to activate his IFR flight plan. He was cleared direct to […]

Relationships are often defined by shared experiences. So was the case with Loretta and me. When the tower asked if we wanted to declare an emergency, my date’s panicked expression suggested that our future together might require more than a safe landing. The Cessna 182 ferry mission was to be routine. N15AP had just been […]

After just over two years of flying our Comanche, Martha and I “needed” a second engine, and more knobs, levers, switches and gauges. In short, we “needed” a Twin Comanche. But we couldn’t afford one. That’s why the “bargain” Twin Comanche in Trade-A-Plane caught our eye. We knew the airplane would be rough, but we […]

We all strive for landings that are silky smooth, where the wheels of the airplane appear to kiss the ground before they slowly roll to a stop. But in addition to making a soft touchdown a priority, you should have an area on the runway in mind as the touchdown zone. If you are not […]

“Cessna 53223 cleared to Runway 18 via Charlie taxiway, Pasquale 3 departure, squawk bingo.” That’s a typical controller clearance for my friend Charlie Peck. Charlie is retired from IBM and flies his Cessna 172 nearly every good weather day. He keeps it at the Portland International Jetport in Portland, Maine. The Auburn-Lewiston airport is his […]

It was a Cessna 340A model and I was the PIC. A sleek, powerful and very cool looking twin-engine airplane, the 340A is powered by two Continental 310-­horsepower engines. Regarded as a “pilot’s airplane,” it has good performance characteristics (airspeed and rate of climb) as reflected by a power loading of 10.48 pounds per horsepower, […]

A Mooney M20J with two aboard, flown by a 300-hour private pilot, began its takeoff roll on Runway 19 at Kansas City Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport (MKC) at intersection Kilo, with 5,313 feet of runway remaining. The pilot retracted the landing gear immediately after liftoff and began a climb, whereupon the engine lost power. […]

We all know that we use elevator trim to reduce pressures on the yoke in flight and thereby make our airplanes easier to handle. You might reason that during an aborted landing you can leave the trim wheel alone if, say, you’re already trimmed for an approach at 70 knots and want to execute a […]

The preflight inspection is, as you well know, an important process where you check all the visible parts and fluids to ensure the airplane is ready to fly. There are, however, many components that we can’t inspect with our eyes. But some of these invisible components can be inspected by other means. You can simply […]