Pilot Proficiency

We often preach about how important it is to have enough fuel to get to your destination — odd that running out of gas should stubbornly continue to be a cause of accidents — but there’s a flip side to having enough fuel to get where you’re going: having too much fuel too soon. For […]

I spent the last couple of days in Queretaro, Mexico, the flashpoint for the Mexican rebellion against Spain in 1810 and, more recently, the site of a brand new Bombardier factory where composite structural components including fuselages and wings for the Learjet 85 are being manufactured. The biggest surprises on my visit weren’t inside the […]

When we talk about risk management, there is a lot of focus on the preflight and making sure you’re fit to fly. But it is equally as important to make sure your focus is on safety of flight while in the air. Flying requires a combination of many complex tasks and you need to have […]

To the cliché that there are pilots who have landed gear up and those who will, one might add a third category: those who have, and will again. I made my first and, so far, only gear-up landing in a Fournier RF-4 motor glider, N7723, on Jan. 23, 1969, at Yucca Valley, California. The RF-4 […]

****There are a number of different products on the market that can help pilots of all skill levels refine and maintain their skills. Here are a few of the best options out there. Redbird TD If your goal is to maintain instrument proficiency, you can legally do so at home with Redbird’s TD desktop simulator, […]

With the economic downturn and unemployment and underemployment that ensued, many Americans are enjoying less disposable income. As a result, your flying budget may not be what it was a few years ago. And meanwhile, the cost of flying has risen. We all know that staying proficient is equivalent to reducing the risks associated with […]

In our FBO Spotlight series, we’re highlighting FBOs around the country that have received rave reviews. This latest Spotlight is brought to you by Peter B. Nichol, who frequently flies out of Tweed-New Haven Airport in a P28R-200. Here’s what he has to say about the airport’s FBO, Robinson Aviation. Robinson Aviation (KHVN) New Haven, […]

As we continue to ponder what we’ll fill our gas tanks with in the future – Diesel? Biofuel? Maybe even plastic, as one intrepid Cessna 182 pilot hopes to do soon – it’s pretty interesting to look back through aviation history and realize that even early pioneers sought out alternatives to the gasoline internal combustion […]

I think it was the summer of 1983 when a nasty line of thunderstorms moved across DuPage Airport west of Chicago, upending a number of airplanes and damaging even more. I was not having a good time as a novice FAA operations safety inspector in the DuPage FSDO. Taking any initiative — doing something — […]

After seeing Martha Lunkin‘s recent Mnemono-Maniacal Moments column, longtime Flying reader David Karnes thought our readers might benefit from his dad’s approach to mnemonics, which takes the form of a poem. The poem makes sense. Kenneth Karnes recently bought a Cessna 210 and needed a way to remember the new procedures associated with his high-performance […]