Pilot Proficiency

The property damage, destruction and flooding caused by the E-1 tornado and torrential downpour that hit the Sun ‘n Fun grounds on March 31, 2011, will likely be on the minds of many as the 38th Annual Sun ‘n Fun International Fly-in & Expo approaches. Though the odds of a repeat performance happening again at […]

Aviation biofuels hold many promises, perhaps the most important being their ability to yield reductions in greenhouse gases emitted by aircraft in flight. Still, airlines will be willing to transition to sustainable fuels only if there is a financial case to do so. Fuel costs are a significant portion of an airline’s overall operating costs […]

We’ve all heard the term, but what is bonus depreciation and how does it work? Normally, when a business purchases a piece of durable capital equipment such as a printing press, a backhoe or a corporate jet, that business is allowed to deduct the cost of the equipment from its taxable income, thereby reducing its […]

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 Lin Caywood, who recently stopped by Cardinal Air in Siler City, North Carolina, in a Cessna 182T. Here’s what she has to say about the experience. Cardinal Air […]

Airlines this week diverted a handful of flights on polar routes to avoid communications disruptions from a solar radiation storm that scientists said was the strongest to hit the Earth since 2005. The geomagnetic storm caused minor disruptions for U.S. airlines, with Delta saying it altered the routes of some Asia-bound flights to more southerly […]

(February 2012) At first glance the NTSB report seemed like a typical “non-instrument-rated pilot takes off into IMC conditions” accident. The pilot had accumulated close to 400 hours during the five years since he had earned his private pilot certificate, mostly in the accident airplane. He was eager to depart on a trip that he […]

Weather conditions make for a turbulent ride.

I was surprised when I read recently that many new airline pilot job applicants struggle with decoding basic metar weather reports. It would seem to me that if you’ve done enough flying to reach the interview stage with a commercial carrier, you would have interpreted hundreds if not thousands of metars along the way. Maybe […]

Once again, a new flying bug has bit me. This time the bite came from a bug-like aircraft – a helicopter. I had a chance to fly a Eurocopter AS350B3, also known as an AStar, the same type of helicopter that landed on top of Mt. Everest a few years ago and set an unbeatable […]

It wasn’t many years ago that the idea of using biofuels for flight was dismissed out of hand as a utopian fantasy. The conventional wisdom said we’d never be able to produce enough aviation biofuel to make a difference, and even if we could it wouldn’t matter — biomass-sourced fuel would wreak havoc on the […]