Pilot Proficiency

One of the most difficult parts of learning to fly has always been learning to talk on the radio. I know it was for me when I was a teenager negotiating with controllers at my first few towered airports. With no experience in the system, simulated or otherwise, I had to scramble to figure out […]

The guy on the phone was a little vague about the availability of a crew car. “We got some T-6s coming in” was the only explanation forthcoming. Undeterred, we set off; there wasn’t much to lose. We were in a Cessna 210 and we were in Texas. By we I mean friends Rob and Kathy […]

It’s always a bit iffy planning an IFR trip that will last more than 48 hours or so. You can make educated guesses on what the weather will be in four or five days (I check the forecasts on Yahoo), but anything beyond the NOAA’s ADDS prog charts (click here) is getting into increasingly uncertain […]

“Taming the tailwheel” was the catchy title for an all-day seminar I attended recently. The program, a FAAST (FAA Safety Team) sanctioned event, was sponsored by EAA Chapter 146 at the Kline Kill Airport (NY1) in Ghent, New York. There were perhaps 40 of us in attendance, and almost all flew conventionally configured airplanes with […]

After he “aced” the ground (oral) portion of a private check ride I gave last week, this young man pointed the airplane in approximately the right direction, found a couple of checkpoints and made a reasonable guess about our time to the next one listed on his flight log sheet. This with benefit of a […]

The annual National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) convention and EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh have a lot in common. You wouldn’t know that to look at the different contents of my suitcase for both shows, but it’s true. I’ve thought for a long time that the core people involved in business aviation have just as much […]

If business jets could qualify as angels, the Cessna Citations participating in the Cessna Citation Special Olympics Airlift would have earned their wings. On July 17, 2010, an armada of Citation business jets carrying some 800 Special Olympics athletes and coaches winged their way from airports all across the country to Lincoln Municipal Airport (KLNK) […]

If you’ve been waiting for the Aircraft Electronics Association’s take on what to expect from the FAA’s plan to implement ADS-B, you’re not going to like what you hear. In an Oct. 4, memo to the FAA, the AEA didn’t mince words. The association said the FAA’s Aug. 30 memo would “stall early equipage, delay […]

Veteran combat airmen based in England during World War II understood the need to be prepared for the worst. Crash landing or bailing out over enemy territory meant a long hike home, at best. So they gave careful thought to carrying whatever it might take to find their way back to friendly territory. Without anyone […]

Each month, Flying answers questions about the new Sport Pilot/Light-Sport Aircraft rule with assistance from the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), the authority on the opportunities available within the category commonly known as “Sport Pilot”: Q: My wife and I both want to get Sport Pilot certificates and light-sport aircraft. Can we use our LSA aircraft […]