Pilot Proficiency

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 […]

Emergencies are rare, but they happen quickly, and being prepared maximizes the likelihood of a good ending to the day. Of the many numbers associated with flying, the best glide speed is one of the most important. The best glide speed allows you to glide the farthest, giving you time to investigate and fix an […]

The winds of fate can blow with a gentle moderate assistance, or they can be right on the nose at 80 knots. Fate is the hunter, as Ernie Gann so eloquently put it, and the winds are frequently the weapon of choice. No matter what you fly today, winds will have a heavy effect on […]

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 Richard Johnston, who recently flew into Carlsbad’s McClellan-Palomar Airport in a Piper Saratoga. Here’s what he had to say about one of the airport’s FBOs, Western Flight Services: […]

With a publishing history that stretches back to 1927, some history told within the pages of Flying Magazine is bound to repeat itself. Reflecting on the October 1944 issue of Flying, which featured naval aviation at war, Edward Sarkisian retells his account of his father, Ed Sarkisian, who was onboard the USS Yorktown as it […]

It’s safe to assume that at some point during your training — maybe at several points — you bounced the landing on touchdown. We all know that corrective action for a bounce — depending on its severity — is the same for ballooning. When the bounce is minor and there’s no extreme change in the […]

The following article, Wrightophilia, is from the December 2003 print issue. The story of the achievement of powered flight by the Wright brothers, which in its bare outline is familiar to everyone, grows more interesting to me as I delve more deeply into it. Orville and Wilbur Wright, as indistinguishable at first glance as Tweedledum […]

As I was talking with Dr. Martin Smith about the research he and his associates at Presage Group were doing on unstable approaches, he commented that visual approaches “were a little more seductive than instrument approaches in terms of continuing with an approach that is unstable.” Dr. Smith said even though all of the participants […]

The pilot-owner of a Cessna R172 — a six-cylinder, 195 hp version of the 172, based on the French-built Reims Rocket — was en route from ­Everett, Washington, to Albuquerque when he and his wife found themselves weathered in at Roseburg, Oregon. The pilot, who did not have an instrument rating, inquired at an FBO […]

How did I get myself into this position? Here I was in a $6 million helicopter, just minutes from running out of fuel, at night, over the swamps of the Florida panhandle. I was beginning to imagine the headlines that would greet my wife and children. “Sir, we’ve got about 10 minutes of gas,” my […]