Pilot Proficiency

A certain amount of an airline pilot’s life is given over to marking time on and around airports, and that is doubly true of the junior captain on reserve. I am currently ensconced in the midcentury-modern environs of the TWA Hotel, built around Eero Saarinen’s soaring TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport. […]

Which is safer, a 10,000-hour pilot who has flown only 20 hours in the last year or a 200-hour pilot who has flown frequently in the last month?

I caught the coronavirus this past October on a commercial flight returning home from Denver. My aisle seat was toward the back of the sold-out flight with an airline that refused to keep middle seats open. By hour two of the flight, there was a line for the bathroom. All those people standing over me, […]

Some pilots flying today might think of “the old days” as 10 years ago when they took their flying lessons in an airplane with analog instrument gauges. Those who earned an instrument rating around that time may remember the VOR system because aircraft were usually equipped with one—if not two—of these indicators. Today, with the […]

“What’s it doing now?” If you haven’t said or thought it in the cockpit, you’ve almost certainly heard it from someone else. The question often has to do with new technology in the cockpit or automation not doing what you think it should. With more and more advanced systems—particularly with regards to navigation—expectation bias is […]

Garmin Aviation has debuted its latest weather radar system, the GWX 8000 StormOptix, with the aim to reduce pilot workload further during the demanding periods in flight when they must negotiate severe weather aloft. The system, which is directed first as a replacement unit for the radar systems integrated with the Garmin G5000 flight deck, […]

When you can say, “Been there, done that!”

Whatever may be said about the FAA, it produces some useful publications. One of them is Advisory Circular 90-109A, Transition to Unfamiliar Aircraft. Not to be confused with its sister publication, AC 90-89, Amateur-Built Aircraft and Ultralight Flight Testing Handbook, AC 90-109A is directed at pilots beginning to fly an airplane of a type with […]

Weather is one of the biggest variables in general aviation flight and a contributing cause of many accidents. While there is no way for us pilots to control the weather, we can modify our flight paths to prevent unplanned encounters with Mother Nature. Fortunately, doing so has become a lot easier in the past few […]

If you enjoy watching airplanes, especially any of the quickly declining global fleet of jumbo jets, Muhammad Ali International—the old Standiford Field (KSDF)—in Louisville, Kentucky, is an excellent place. The home of UPS, KSDF offers the opportunity to see large Boeings—747s, 757s and 767s—as well as Airbus A300s and McDonnell Douglas MD-11s operating day and night. […]