Search Results for: Lear 45

We are based at Witham Field, Stuart, Florida. Stuart is a fairly busy airport, located in southeast Florida between Palm Beach and Vero Beach. It is also a port of entry, and there is a large flight school located here. On this particular day, the weather was picture perfect for flying. We had flown to […]

After a three-day trip to the Denver area mixing business and recreation, you’re heading eastbound for home with a stop in Medford, Oklahoma, to visit a friend. Medford Muni (Oscar-53) doesn’t seem to have much to it, though, so you review the logistics to confirm it’ll work for an overnight. One runway at 3007 feet? […]

If you had the typical student-pilot training, you likely spent a good bit of time with the airplane hanging on its prop, stall-warner blaring or shining at you, as an instructor coached you through slow flight, the various kinds of stalls and their recovery. Hopefully, you came away from that portion of your training with […]

February 2, 2021, Leicester, Mass. Piper PA-46-350P Malibu Mirage At about 1645 Eastern time, the airplane was substantially damaged when it apparently entered a tailplane stall during an in-flight icing encounter and collided with terrain. The commercial pilot and two passengers received minor injuries. Visual conditions prevailed at the accident site; an IFR flight plan […]

What aviation aficionado hasn’t watched the iconic 1986 hit movie Top Gun, the story of Maverick, a US Navy F-14 pilot portrayed by actor Tom Cruise? In an early scene with co-star Anthony Edwards, the pair is walking among a bevy of parked F-14s when Maverick’s overcome with the need to yell, “I feel the […]

Pilots flying during the COVID-19 pandemic have an added layer of complexity to consider in their initial flight planning. This planning now needs to include the various travel restrictions on where to go and if to stay. Summer 2020 included much of this consideration when planning where to visit with my Piper Cherokee PA-28-180. If […]

Let’s get this straight from the beginning: The Van’s Aircraft RV-14A is not an off-the-shelf airplane. Every one of them out in the wild is custom-built. Even its recommended 210 hp Lycoming Thunderbolt XIO-390 engine is hand-assembled, polished and ported by a select team of Lycoming employees. And the “A” denotes a nosewheel version, with […]

Is there any way to thank a friend for inviting you to ride in a Boeing B-29 Superfortress—and even in the “candy” bombardier’s seat? After realigning my dropped jaw and babbling, “Oh, gosh, yes,” I blathered on with: “Really? You’re sure? You’re not kidding? But, David, how can I even begin to thank you?” And […]

The angle of attack readout on the PFD wasn’t the first thing that caught my attention. No, that would be the unending cry of the audible stall warning as we just couldn’t catch a break. We began a steady descent, nose high, and slowed somewhere below 39 knots. We were flying rather well, all things […]

In September, Gulfstream saw its hard work and investment in new products pay off in the certification of not one but two business jets: the remarkable, clean-sheet Gulfstream G650 and the nearly equally remarkable Gulfstream G280 supermidsize model. I had the privilege of being the first non-company or government pilot to fly the G280. As […]