Pilot Proficiency

After my article on overcoming go-around hesitation was published in the November 2012 issue of Flying, I received a message from Dr. Martin Smith about a study he and his associates at Presage Group Inc. conducted in conjunction with the Flight Safety Foundation. The goal of the study was to try to determine how commercial […]

As summer approaches and temperatures begin to rise, it’s important to take steps to keep cool. Excessive heat can be incapacitating, and the effects might not hit you until you have already taken off. A Ryan Air pilot found this out the hard way as he passed out partway into a flight from Pisa, Italy, […]

It is often pointed out that although people commonly imagine aircraft accidents as arising from a single big cause — engine failure, thunderstorm — they very often follow a series of small ones. Any small thing slightly out of order may, under sufficiently unlucky circumstances, become the cause of an accident. It is the inherently […]

Once again the White House’s annual budget proposal calls for a $100 per-flight user fee on certain general aviation aircraft. While talk of user fees used to send chills through the industry, this time around the reaction has been one of confident resolve rather than fear. Here’s what’s changed. In the last few years the […]

Even if you only fly VFR in good weather, it pays to check for the location of instrument approaches along your route of flight. Just as you always ensure that your course doesn’t take you dangerously close to terrain or obstacles, you also want to avoid flying through the inbound course of an approach that […]

I gazed at the pile of Jepp binders that were scattered across my desk: United States, Europe, Latin America, Pacific, Far East, 777 ops manual, company manual. I sighed with a wary smile. Was it possible that I would never again have to clack open metal rings and replace pages upon pages of approach plates […]

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 Mike “Gunner” Thompson, who recently flew into Page Field Airport in Fort Myers, Florida, in a Piper Archer II. Here’s what he had to say about one of […]

Night flying presents enough of an additional challenge to us pilots that the FAA maintains certain requirements for night-specific training for the Private and Commercial Pilot Certificates and for night flying currency in order to carry passengers. In order to be safe at night, panel and cockpit lighting is important as it ensures that you […]

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 Jim Urban, who recently flew into Traverse City, Michigan’s Cherry Capital Airport in a Cessna 210. Here’s what he had to say about one of the airport’s FBOs, […]

In the FAA’s rush to shut down scores of the nation’s contract control towers, nobody within the agency saw it necessary to perform a thorough analysis of the potential safety ramifications. Nor did the agency conduct a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis to consider, among other things, the millions of dollars it took to build the towers […]