Pilot Proficiency

“Whoa! Stop. You would not do that to your lawn mower.” I hear this over the din of the engine and next feel a firm left hand atop my sweating right hand. The left hand slowly pulls my tightly clenched right hand and the throttle on the Cessna 150 toward the idle position. As opposed […]

We all know that the Nexrad weather graphics we see on our multifunction displays can be dangerously outdated, showing the location of storms not where they are now but where they were many minutes ago. But did you know that the precipitation data displayed on ARTCC radar scopes suffers from a similar lag? Maybe you […]

Last summer, my wife and I wanted to visit the Brooks Range in August to hunt Dall sheep. For those not familiar with it, the Brooks Range is a mountain range stretching about 700 miles from western Alaska across the state east to Canada’s Yukon Territory. From where we live in South Central Alaska, it […]

Multitasking is accepted as a given in our modern technology-driven society. Anyone with a teenager has shaken his head at the sight of his child doing homework while listening to music at a loud volume through earphones, and at the same time carrying on multiple texting conversations and surfing the Internet. While a multicore computer […]

Everyone agrees that diesel makes a lot of sense for light GA, but so far there have only been lower- to mid-power options, including models from Thielert, Austro and SMA. One company, Engineered Propulsion Systems (EPS), of New Richmond, Wisconsin, is doing something about this state of affairs by developing an aero diesel, the Vision […]

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 John Moffitt, who recently flew into Salt Lake City International Airport in a Cessna 182. Here’s what he had to say about the airport’s FBO, TAC Air: “Although […]

The crash of Asiana 214, a Boeing 777, at SFO brought to the world’s attention a number of issues that pilots have been talking about for years, most notably the role of automation in safety and its potential unintended negative consequences if pilots become too reliant on it and lose critical hand-flying skills. What issue […]

When flying in busy airspace, frequency changes can happen often, sometimes every few minutes. It is good practice to write down each frequency in case you need to reference it later. The past frequencies may be helpful if for some reason you can’t reach the next controller or, more importantly, if you have a comm […]

The owner of the float-equipped Maule saw it crash. He was there to watch as his friend and a passenger arrived in the airplane. “I witnessed the airplane fly over the field,” he wrote, “and enter a downwind for a landing on Runway 4. As the plane turned from base to final, it banked at […]

With apologies to our vegan readers, we present the most delicious flight plan ever, with waypoints carefully chosen not necessarily to give the best routing but to offer the best life advice, in our humble opinions, that is. The picture was snapped in flight by Cirrus rep Ivy McIvers, who presumably hadn’t had any part […]