Pilot Proficiency

FBO Spotlight: Aero Air (KHIO)

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 Robert Thrailkill, who recently flew into Portland-Hillsboro Airport in Portland, Oregon, in a Beechcraft P35. Here’s what he had to say about one of the airport’s FBOs, Aero […]

Read More »

United Airlines to Recall All Furloughed Pilots

United Airlines announced yesterday it will recall all of its furloughed pilots — nearly 600. The announcement bodes well for those who predict a pilot shortage, though experts stress that this does not necessarily signal growth for the troubled airline industry. The recalls will fill expected staffing needs caused by retirements and new duty-time rules, […]

Read More »

Two Antique Men and One Antique Plane

My name is Jack — I am 82 years old. My friend Gary is 83 years old, and my 1947 Aeronca Super Chief (N3900E) is 65 years old. In 1960, I went to work for Alaska Airlines for 25 years. Before and during that time, I worked on a lot of different airplanes, and for […]

Read More »

Play with Your Peers

While you need to enlist a certified flight instructor once every couple of years for your biennial flight review, you don’t need to pay a CFI to learn new things about flying. If you connect with other pilots at your flight school or at neighboring hangars, you are likely to learn new things and find […]

Read More »

Are Weather Forecasts Really Getting Better?

They tell us that weather forecasting is seeing dramatic improvements thanks to new supercomputers capable of making hundreds of trillions of calculations per second. The latest computers in the arsenal of the National Weather Service are now more than twice as fast as they were just a few years ago, enabling far more accurate forecasts […]

Read More »

Don’t Rush the Preflight

I once watched a pilot perform a quickie preflight inspection of a Skyhawk at a flight school and then hop in the airplane and try to taxi out — with the tail still tied down. The red-faced pilot shut down and untied the rope as those of us on the ramp offered words of encouragement. […]

Read More »

Jumpseat: The Brazilian Shuttle

It is not often that I am able to accept an invitation from a reader, but when 27-year-old First Officer Will Romualdo offered me a jumpseat view with Avianca Brazil, I could not refuse. For the last two months, I had been flying the daytime trip to São Paulo. The layover would afford me the […]

Read More »

Controversy on 51 Heroes of Aviation

Our recently launched gallery Flying Magazine’s “51 Heroes of Aviation” has been a runaway success, but it has not been without controversy. A number of readers have weighed in that we had left off their choice of most inspirational aviation figure — we can’t name names for fear of spoiling the gallery for those of […]

Read More »

Taming Stalls and Spins With Technology

| There’s only one foolproof way to ensure you don’t end up as an accident statistic in yet another stall/spin fatal crash: Avoid stalling in the first place. Yet if the goal is to avoid stalling, why do we spend so much time practicing stalls? After all, 97 percent of stall/spin accidents that start at […]

Read More »
Pilot in aircraft
Sign-up for newsletters & special offers!

Get the latest stories & special offers delivered directly to your inbox.

SUBSCRIBE