Pilot Proficiency

As pilots, we spend much of our training time anticipating emergencies and drilling ourselves on how to react. That’s good, because training means exercising our mental muscle memory. Just as a pro basketball player practices the same three-point shot thousands of times to train his leg, arm and wrist muscles, we ingrain the correct responses […]

At 10,000 feet, the weather opened up and we could see how Anchorage is surrounded by awesome and treacherous terrain. My first look at Alaska was from the window seat of a Boeing, but as a pilot, I could immediately appreciate how this could be a very dangerous place to fly. Later, as I drove […]

July 2010 — Time have changed in aviation, with the advent of computerized avionics, satellite navigation and five-buck-a-gallon avgas, but two things that haven’t changed are that flying costs money and pilots will look for ways to cut those costs. There’s more need to economize than ever before because getting behind the yoke of an […]

A group called the Clean 100-Octane Coalition met with FAA last week and made it clear that any 100 Low Lead (100LL) replacement fuel must be able to accommodate high-power piston engines. There has been controversy surrounding proposals to develop fuels that would operate well with most piston aircraft engines, but not the higher-powered models, […]

Air traffic controllers are terrific people dedicated to helping pilots complete their flights smoothly and safely. That is a true statement until the smooth part, or maybe even the safe part, comes into conflict with the only absolute requirement in ATC, which is to separate airplanes under its control from one another by required minimum […]

From the ‘What were they thinking?’ department: the FAA’s Electronic Special Traffic Management Program (eSTMP) had announced it was updating its computers, beginning tomorrow and running through Monday (July 23-26). That’s the four days immediately before EAA AirVenture, the largest gathering of aircraft in the world. The eSTMP system coordinates IFR slot reservations at venues […]

As soon as this fall, owners could be required to re-register their aircraft with the FAA every three years. The current policy is a one-time registration with a five-dollar fee. The fee for re-registration, if any, has yet to be announced. The re-registration strategy was first proposed two years ago as a means of updating […]

One of the requirements for parking at Wittman Regional Airport during EAA AirVenture Oshkosh (July 26 to Aug. 1) is tying down your airplane, using ropes and tiedown hardware that you bring with you. If you’re blessed with hangar space for your airplane the other 51 weeks of the year, maybe it’s been awhile since […]

During one of my Sport Pilot lessons with First Landings Aviation’s Chris Esposito, we had just finished up practicing stalls and steep turns off the north shore of Lake Apopka on yet another gorgeous morning. I had been wondering when we would be practicing engine-out scenarios and asked Chris out of curiosity if one of […]

When Flying Editor in Chief Mac McClellan read the headline and the short description of this week’s Tip, he was kind enough to share with me the text for his Left Seat column that will appear in the August issue. I interpreted this as his way of hinting at me to read it, and then […]