Pilot Proficiency

The recent episode of a Cessna 337 ditching in the North Atlantic captured the attention of a lot of pilots. The fortunate survival of the crew — hopping from ice floe to ice floe for 18 hours until rescued by a fishing boat — ought to be a conversation starter, even though most of us […]

This time, you did all your homework. You got a good night’s sleep. And maybe all your biorhythms were synched up just right. For whatever combination of reasons, you just cleaned your plate — completed your entire training syllabus with half an hour left on your simulator punch card. What would you do? This question […]

Approach Control had vectored me onto what seemed like a wide downwind leg to Washington Dulles International. My problem was he still had me at 5,000 feet. When I was abeam the numbers, waiting for an answer to the mystery, he turned me over to the tower controller who said, “cleared to land.” I replied, […]

In early June all members of the Civil Air Patrol in the Southwest Region, which includes the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, received the following message from the Southwest Region Commander, Col. Joseph Jensen: “I am sorry to report that we have recently had two hard landings in the Southwest […]

Flying our airplanes on holiday trips can be one of life’s great stress relievers. It subtracts hours, if not days, of travel time, eliminates the worst that airline airports have to offer and permits us, as pilots, to glow in the admiration of our families and other loved ones. But I need not tell you […]

With the holidays coming up, I hope you’ll be flying someplace interesting. If not, you can relieve some of the boredom at home by taking an online mini-course, or reviewing some of your old DVD courses left over from training days — just be sure they’re not too out of date as to airspace changes […]

Lew Gage is a retired airline pilot and A&P mechanic who knows more about operating early E-engine Bonanzas than Warren Buffett knows about the side streets of Omaha. And he’s written much of it down — as a regular contributor to the American Bonanza Society magazine. Gage has published a book of his articles (E-Series […]

A student-pilot friend recently asked if I thought my airport would be a good destination for one of his night cross-country trips. The first concern that came to my mind was the prospect of hitting a deer. We have a Pilatus PC-12 owner-operator at my small, nontower airport, and he’s told me he won’t land […]

With prices for automotive gas plunging at the pump, pilots might be forgiven their impatience with prices they are continuing to pay for aviation fuel — be it 100LL or jet-A. But it’s not necessarily price gouging by the FBO. The volume of general aviation fuel produced and sold represents a tiny drop in the […]

I have always thought it was extremely unfortunate when a professional pilot or crew carefully plans a flight, expertly follows the flight plan, and then suddenly makes a snap decision that undoes all their careful planning and execution. An accident at the Ellen Church Field Airport (CJJ) in Cresco, Iowa, in July 2006 illustrates how […]