Search Results for: Cessna 172

Not a winter goes by without someone sending me an e-mail that includes the sentence, “You aren’t really suggesting I don’t fly my airplane in IMC in the winter?” It’s usually from the pilot of a very capable piston single or light twin that is not certificated for flight in icing conditions; often the pilot includes something like, “I live in the Great Lakes and we get icing a large part of the year.” Sometimes I get a similar question about passenger and baggage loads. “The engineers at [insert airplane manufacturer name here] wouldn’t have designed the airplane with six seats if it couldn’t carry six adults, or at least four adults and two kids. Do you really mean I can’t fill the seats and the fuel tanks?” A current trend is questions about synthetic vision systems in glass cockpit panels or cutting-edge heads-up displays. “With an essentially VFR depiction of the runway, I can make a zero-zero takeoff and even a zero-zero landing ‘if I have to’, can’t I?”

Jeppesen recently announced what the company calls “blended learning” — a complete training solution, offering students, instructors and flight schools flight training programs designed to work together to make the process of learning to fly more efficient. The solution combines courses that have been in existence for years with recently released offerings. Jeppesen offers its […]

It was a picture-perfect early February day in Michigan — clear blue sky, calm wind, 30 degrees Fahrenheit. It was even better because there was no snow on the grass strip. But a storm was forecast to bring 12 inches of snow the next day. That much snow would shut down my flying for days […]

In our FBO Spotlight series, we’re highlighting FBOs around the country that have received rave reviews from our readers. This latest Spotlight is brought to you by Greg Felton, who recently visited Leading Edge Aviation at South Valley Regional Airport in a Cessna 172. Here’s what he has to say about the experience. Leading Edge […]

In our FBO Spotlight series, we’re highlighting FBOs around the country that have received rave reviews from our readers. This latest Spotlight is brought to you by John Carpenter, who recently stopped by Smyth Wythe Airport Commission at Mountain Empire Airport in a Cessna 172M. Here’s what he has to say about the experience. Smyth […]

It was supposed to have been a fun December evening spent viewing the twinkling Christmas lights around Dallas from the lofty vantage point of an Aviat Husky. Instead, joy turned to tragedy moments after the flight ended, when the Husky’s passenger, a 23-year-old fashion model named Lauren Scruggs, climbed out of the airplane onto the […]

The NTSB (or FAA when delegated by NTSB) investigates fatal accidents and the Board issues reports on the probable cause of the accident. The reports also list contributing factors to the accident. Typically, the final reports are peppered with words such as loss of control, controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) and other language describing the final event in the accident sequence and attributing it to one or more other events. But rarely does the report explain the “why” of the accident or the “how” of the pilot’s or other participants’ actions relating to the “why.” For example, in a loss-of-control accident, why did the pilot lose control of the aircraft and how did he or she place themselves in that predicament?

Sporty’s and Frasca Sim are teaming up to offer student pilots an enhanced, more cost effective experience, both companies recently announced. With the move, Sporty’s Academy is adding a Frasca Mentor flight simulator to its repertoire of training tools. The sim, designed to mimic the G1000-equipped Cessna 172 cockpit, comes equipped with access to over […]

Whether it’s a rubber chicken, a pig or a red-ribbon streamer, the pitot tube cover is a critical piece of equipment that is sometimes ignored or forgotten by pilots. Designed to prevent debris or bugs from entering the pitot tube while the airplane is parked, this cover takes seconds to put on and remove. Omitting […]

Properly managing risk is essential to successfully pursuing life’s more exciting adventures. Activities such as scuba diving, downhill skiing, motorcycling, mountaineering and, of course, flying, all entail elements of risk which we must consider and manage if the thrills we seek are to be experienced more than once. But risk management often is poorly understood: While most people believe themselves to be prudent, the reality is large risks are often ignored and minor dangers grossly exaggerated. In general aviation, our inability to assess risk properly is evidenced by the number of weather-related accidents consistently gracing NTSB logs, even in the face of widely available near-real-time meteorological data on the ground and in the cockpit.