Pilot Proficiency

I adjusted the captain’s seat a final time and exhaled a hushed whistle. My eyes darted across the DC-9’s cluttered instrument panel. Endless dials and knobs were embedded in the gray metal. A seasoned DC-9 pilot would view the layout as a smile from an old friend. I felt like I was shaking hands with […]

As the days pass, the likelihood of ever finding Malaysia Airlines Flight 370‘s black boxes grow dimmer. Searchers initially began looking for the jet in the Gulf of Thailand, the location of the Boeing 777’s last reported position. They then fanned out to the west, believing that the jetliner may have veered off course with […]

We’ve all cursed the guy prattling on for what seems like forever over the Unicom frequency as he supplies us with every last detail of what he’s flying, what he’s doing and what he plans to do next. Meanwhile, we can’t get a word in edgewise to let other pilots know we’ve just entered the […]

What if you could live inside an airplane? Well, one aviation enthusiast has actually made that possible. About four years ago, engineer Toshikazu Tsukii (or Ski as he is commonly known) took on the enormous project of building a guesthouse using parts of retired Boeing 707, 727, 737, 747 jets and military airplanes. Living in […]

You may be intimidated by the thought of international flying, particularly with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Electronic Advance Passenger Information System — eAPIS — which was implemented in 2009. While you are subjected to major fines if you don’t comply, it is not a very complicated system. It simply involves an online portal […]

In our FBO Spotlight series, we’re highlighting FBOs around the country that have received rave reviews from our readers. This latest Spotlight is brought to you by Nick Fahim, who has recently flown into Eagle Creek Airpark Airport in Indianapolis, Indiana, in a Piper Dakota PA28-236. Here’s what he had to say about the airport’s […]

Most pilots who have been flying for a while know pilots who scare them. My husband, John, and I were two of those pilots. We were so wrapped up in using our airplane as a personal, fun traveling machine that we would not let anything — inexperience, nighttime, bad weather, even a rough-running engine — […]

Newton’s third law states that for each action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This concept can be applied in the cockpit too. For each action there should be an appropriate reaction. There are many levers, knobs and buttons and it is quite easy to mistakenly grab or push the wrong one. To ensure […]

If you’re a private pilot or an airline transport pilot, it doesn’t take long to discover that the “small world” axiom is very true within the aviation community. A relationship developed years earlier can resurface in the most unlikely places. Because of that, I was given advice to never burn a bridge in my climb […]

When climbing, you need some right rudder to keep the ball centered. If you perform a half roll and continue to climb upside-down, which rudder will you have to use to stay coordinated? Why do we need right rudder in a climb, anyway? Is it because of slipstream rotation? The propeller drags some air around […]