Pilot Proficiency

“Let’s get one thing straight. There is a big difference between a pilot and an aviator. A pilot is a technician. An aviator is an artist in love with flight.” So said Elrey Borge Jeppesen. As I try to migrate from pilot to aviator, I’ve discovered, or I should say rediscovered, an important truth. It […]

It was a setup for loss of control. Martha and I were brand-new VFR-only pilots and, while returning from California to Indiana, had decided to scud–run through Tennessee to hurry our way home. The ceilings had pressed us down below the tops of tall antennas, and we were circling tightly over a small town while […]

In March 2011 a pilot flying a Beechcraft B35 Bonanza near Whidbey Island, Washington, heard strange noises that he described as thumps coming from his airplane as he maneuvered to avoid a restricted area. The pilot reported that his airspeed was 165 knots, which is in the yellow arc of the airspeed indicator. Once on […]

On a Thursday in March 2013, the 500-hour pilot of a Mooney M20E arrived at Angel Fire, a ski resort east of Taos in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico. With him were his girlfriend, his sister and his sister’s 13-year-old daughter. They came from San Antonio, stayed with a cousin of the […]

The passengers were all sound asleep in the back. It would be a shame to awaken them to prepare for the landing. I let them sleep until the very last moment. There had been none of the usual complaints, like “we’re too hot” or “we’re too cold.” They had no inkling of what lay ahead […]

When it comes to avoiding structural icing, the enhanced infrared satellite image ( Read More »

Few pilots know that FAA imposes a hard character limit on text products such as Convective SIGMETs and the Area Forecasts (FA). The Aviation Weather Center (AWC) has a check program for the Area Forecast that counts the number of characters. On busy weather days when these forecasters have a lot to mention in the forecast, they often bust the character count. This forces them to cut from either the text or the synopsis in order to make the size fit through the National Airspace Data Interchange Network (NADIN) hubs. Often the first casualty is the ellipsis (…). Forecasters can use two periods instead of three. Another casualty is the synopsis. Of course, the last resort is to cut from the text of the FA.

I was having fun despite it being a slog on the airlines. Id spun a cancelation of my flight to La Guardia (due to a tropical storm shutting down the East Coast) into a direct flight home from Toronto to Portland. Circumstance even got me into an airport members-only lounge with cozy couches and free food while I got some work done on the laptop.

As seasoned recreational pilots we sometimes forget just how little about general aviation our passengers really know and understand. Many of our right-seaters probably think flying in a light airplane is little different from what they experience on the airlines. From their time flying United or Delta, they know the drill is to sit down, […]

It was late afternoon and time to fly home after a productive business meeting. Before heading to the airport, the pilot called Flight Service. Most of the significant weather was along a cold front just to the north of his east-west proposed route. The briefer mentioned some light snow showers were showing up on radar near the front. There were a few pilot reports of light to moderate icing, but all of them were associated with the weather to the north. The briefer alerted the pilot to an AIRMET for IFR conditions and mountain obscuration along a portion of his proposed route, but as of yet no en route advisories for structural icing had been issued.