Pilot Proficiency

Ill admit it: I enjoy searching out some little-known gems in the regulations. Some, of course, are items we should know-but often dont. Others are almost so esoteric that it simply might not matter to most of us.

For a supposed airline pilot and aviation writer, I’ve spent a scandalous amount of time at sea level over the past year. In late October, my wife, Dawn, and I cast off the lines from our summer dock in the Chesapeake and pointed our 42-foot sailboat, Windbird, southward to the Caribbean. From the eye-popping waterscapes of […]

A Navion crash in November 2016 could have been avoided by breaking an old habit.

Flight schools are finding it hard to retain instructors because airlines are hiring them away, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accounting Office. Schools also find it challenging to recruit new students, due to the high cost of training. Also, the Helicopter Association International, in a study undertaken with the University Of North Dakota, projected a shortage of more than 7600 helicopter pilots by 2030. Helicopter mechanics will become even scarcer, with a shortage of 40,613 predicted in the U.S. by 2036. Bills aimed at supporting aviation workforce development have been introduced in both the House and the Senate over the last several months.

I bought my 2003 Ovation a couple years ago primarily for its flight in known ice certification (FIKI). Frequent trips to the Milwaukee and Philadelphia areas to see grandkids mean occasional exposure to ice. Id never flown with FIKI. My first use last year was very encouraging; climbing out of KUES through an icy layer into the clear we accumulated maybe 1/8 on the landing lights and wing tips but nothing anywhere else. However, I subsequently found and fixed multiple fitting leaks.

Have you recently looked closely at the airspace system we have to navigate today? Spurious TFRs pop up randomly, and its only getting worse. I dont have to worry about any of that. I file what I want and if ATC doesnt want me there, they, uh, tell me where to go.

Pilot pride comes with the certificates and ratings achieved through successful checkrides. But like flying itself, maintaining one’s pilot pride properly is a never-ending effort. Human nature is an ever-present foe. Complacency replaces striving to be better on every flight, and boastful delusions take the place of yesterday’s abilities. Proper pilot pride abhors such delusions, […]

Loss of aircraft control remains the No. 1 killer of general aviation pilots, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). At an industry roundtable hosted by the NTSB at its Washington, D.C., headquarters in April, the hot topic was how better training and technology can help pilots do a better job of flying their […]

In an era of WAAS GPS navigation systems on board even the smallest aircraft, flying a localizer back-course approach could seem rather archaic. Indeed, for years many pilots viewed a LOC BC approach as more of an afterthought at airports, simply because the procedure was built off the back side of a full ILS system […]

This story on non-towered airports comes from Jetwhine, a blog that began in 2006 as my experiment into what was then a new world of self-publishing. In the 12 years since, Jetwhine has never failed to regularly publish a story about some aspect of the aviation industry that wasn’t available anywhere else. Few other blogs […]