Pilot Proficiency

Maintenance techs aren’t required to be pilots or aerodynamicists.

The flight lasted all of 11 minutes. It is hard to imagine how such a short leg could be of such rapture, but it was. Credit must be given to the days that preceded the flight, because they hold the key to the distilled delight and might explain the hyperbole. Tampa, Florida, to Lakeland, Florida, […]

The threat from Axis submarines prowling the East Coast of the United States was scary and very real. Onshore shelling terrorized civilians, but the real low-hanging fruit for the submarines was on the seas. By as early as August 1942, Axis subs had caused the loss of thousands of lives, mainly merchant mariners, and sunk […]

I recently bumped into Jennifer Storm at Sun n’ Fun in Lakeland and I had to admit that after congratulating her on her new role as VP of the AOPA Foundation, I really knew next to nothing about the organization. She took a few minutes between meetings and the noise of the nearby airshow to […]

Tobias Smollett, though not a pilot, pulled off a couple of good things. He wrote novels and practiced medicine in Covent Garden in the 18th century. He pointed out that when one has given his life to a pursuit, his ideas and pronouncements might, in fact, sound arbitrary or inane to the unschooled. Mark Twain […]

A fter a record winter where temperatures fell below -30 degrees F in some parts of the Midwest, its hard to believe summer is approaching again. That means a rapid increase in thunderstorm activity across the country. In this issue our goal is to help you not only understand the parts of a storm but also whats going on underneath the hood and what it means for the forecast. The information also might help save your bacon when things go downhill unexpectedly and all the data you have is whats out the window.

When we got BasicMed, something wed done for a long time was taken away. BasicMed applies to acting as pilot in command. But, with BasicMed youre not legal to act as a safety pilot for your buddy whos under the hood practicing approaches in VMC. So, you exercise the workaround of agreeing ahead of time that you, the safety pilot, are indeed the PIC for this flight (more on that in a moment), then youre once again good to go even with BasicMed … if, that is, the aircraft insurance agrees. Lets look more carefully at all this.

I haven’t been the same since I totaled my airplane in Telluride, Colorado, last May. Over the past months in these pages I’ve detailed the fears and anxieties that plague me as I try to get back to being the pilot I once was. Caution that exceeds reasonable risk assessment. Fear that grounds me in […]

I have been a motorcycle road racer for many years. Picture closed circuits and leather suits with knee sliders. The kind of gear that protects you when you lean over and press your knee into the asphalt at triple-digit speeds. I love road racing, and crashing is part of the game. I have done so […]

Like a good marriage, an abiding love for aviation grows and changes over the years. The emotion is always there, but the reason for the initial attraction isn’t always the same reason you stay committed. I was fortunate to fall in love with aviation as a kid while riding around in the back of my […]