Pilot Proficiency

When a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max 8 with only 800 hours crashed into the ocean in November, killing all 189 on board, the event raised a lot of questions. It behaved erratically in flight before the crew lost control, and several crews had reported problems with the airplane in the days before.

In my first column I promised unmitigated honesty, so let’s begin there. Since last writing, a buried detail from the accident has unearthed itself from my memory. The way I told it last month, once I recovered from the near stall-spin there was so little runway left, I simply had to put the airplane down […]

Do you believe your backside or your lyin’ eyes?

Someone once suggested that if you want to know how you would feel crossing an ocean in a single-engine airplane, you should just fly out to sea for a couple of hours and then turn around and come back. There’s something about being out of sight of land that, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson’s remark about […]

The past few years have been the most exciting and dynamic stretch of time for me since I started flying 20 years ago. Much of it has been driven by the changes and benefits resulting from the implementation of the FAA’s NextGen plan, as the national airspace system transitions from 1950s-era ground-based radar and VHF […]

As I glanced down the parallel taxiway of JFK’s Runway 31L, the idea that this would be the very last time began to resonate in my psyche. The thought wasn’t debilitating by any means, but the concept hadn’t really taken hold until that moment. No more 777. No more trips to Heathrow. No more Cat […]

With winter nearly in full swing north of the equator, it’s only a matter of time before instrument-rated pilots will need to make decisions about how to escape from icing situations, whether that be before takeoff or while en route. Ice adds weight and acts as a lift spoiler across wings and tail surfaces. Ice […]

The old man was seduced. There is no other way to put it. He was intrigued at first, then tempted, then smitten, and finally, all in. Against all rational thought, he was totally taken by the sexy 18-year-old. That old man was me. “She” was a 2000 Beechcraft Premier 1. In these days of carefulness […]

Just as learning doesn’t stop with earning your license, debriefing doesn’t have to stop when there’s no instructor around. Seasoned pilots wanting to increase their proficiency can review and debrief their own flights, thanks to data conversion software such as CloudAhoy. Developed by instrument-rated pilot and software engineer Chuck Shavit, CloudAhoy allows pilots to replay […]

The only IFR approach to Auburn, Washington (S50), is hardly a procedure anyone would consider straightforward, despite the airport’s 63-foot field elevation. Also known as Dick Scobee Field, named for the late Challenger shuttle commander, Auburn sits just a few miles southeast of the busy Sea-Tac Class B, while farther southeast the terrain rises to […]