Pilot Proficiency

If you’re looking for a staunch advocate of attitude flying, you’ll find none better or more evangelical than Wolfgang Langewiesche in his classic Stick and Rudder. His sermonizing on the importance of angle of attack (and his practical explanations of what the heck it actually IS) guided many a future Air Corps pilot through the […]

When deciding which avionics to add to your airplane, plenty of great products are within reach—even if you can’t afford to buy everything you want. If your goal is to reduce the chances of your tail number appearing in the NTSB’s accident database, the good news is you’ll need only four key avionics technologies to […]

While most people start flight training because they’ve had a lifelong desire to learn to fly, some start training to overcome their fear of flying. During initial training, future pilots of both categories seem to have, if not a fear, a healthy respect for slow flight and stalls. Their bodies naturally feel that there is […]

I know. Just what you didn’t need to hear. Another batch of New Year’s resolutions that are most likely to wind up forgotten before the spilled champagne dries from your carpet. Well, here they are anyway: five areas in which we could all benefit from a little more attention. 1. Read something old. There was […]

As I write, the year 2010 is almost over, and the overwhelming sentiment among most of us is, “out with the old and in with the new.” In aviation as in nearly every other economic segment, the year served up many challenges and few answers. Still, despite a wealth of bad news, there were some […]

My dad was the one who led me to combine my dual interests in flying and writing—and as a talented pilot and storyteller, he taught me a great deal about both, particularly when I was a teenager working as a lineboy at Teterboro Airport and writing part time for a few local community newspapers. In […]

When I was recently asked to fly from my home in Los Angeles to Paso Robles, I experienced an unfamiliar nervousness. Flying used to be second nature. It didn’t feel much more challenging than stepping into my car to drive to the grocery store. But I gave birth to a son in the summer of […]

I didn’t think it was such a crazy idea. My boyfriend’s 17-year-old son, Connor, had been expressing an interest in flying for the past couple of years. I’d promised him I’d take him up one day so he could get a better idea of what it was like, but Connor and his dad lived in […]

There’s a discount store, called the Dollar Store, where everything in the establishment goes for a dollar or less. This is not strictly true, for some items may reach two or even three dollars, but you get the point. This retailer suggests a metaphor for flying short distances. A lot of satisfaction can be had […]

It’s not that I was so unlike the typical teenager—counting down the days until I took my driver’s test at 17—but there was no denying I looked forward to an earlier birthday even more eagerly: my 15th, when finally I was allowed to start taking flying lessons. I first began pestering my parents to let […]