Search Results for: Lear 45

The phrase “armed and dangerous” is an idiom I apply to a pilot with hazardous attitudes such as anti-authority (“don’t tell me”), invulnerability (“it won’t happen to me”) and macho (“I can do it”). These individuals fly by their rules in unpredictable and potentially dangerous ways, disregard established flight-safety practices, seem unconcerned for their own […]

Pop quiz. You’re in the pattern at a nontowered airport on a calm day, announcing your turn to base for Runway 35, which is right traffic. Just then, you hear two other pilots make their first calls on the common traffic advisory frequency—one of them announcing they’re 2 miles out on a straight-in downwind for […]

According to the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), there are about 2,700 flights that cross the world’s oceans every day. When you’re halfway between continents and your airplane suffers an in-flight emergency, sometimes the only option is to ditch in the angry ocean below. Surviving this kind of “blue water ditching” was the subject of […]

Not long ago, I was kibitzing with Mike, my longtime friend and hangar-flying buddy. Aviation was, of course, the topic of choice. I was in the midst of a compelling (or so I thought) “there-I-was” story in which I referred to a colleague as a “good” pilot. Mike stopped me with a deceptively simple question: […]

At the end of a five-hour final leg of a cross-country trip from the west coast to Michigan, I was very much ready to stop and stretch my legs. I was descending from 17,000 over Lake Michigan towards Traverse City. I broke out of clouds at the edge of Wisconsin and could see the other shore. […]

“X” Not Always the Spot Reference September’s article, “Do You Know ICAO?” It might be interesting to note that, while the FAA usually follows ICAO standards, particularly for navigation, the FAA’s computer navigation fixes (an “×” on our instrument charts) are neither adopted nor recognized by ICAO. Adam Vance Allston, MA Tow Bars: Ground Use […]

Back when I was a fledgling aviator with less than a thousand hours in my logbook, I ferried airplanes for various aircraft brokers throughout the United States to build time. My goal was to gain 1,200 hours of flight time so that I could hopefully become employed flying canceled checks with a Part 135 operation. […]

Monday dawns full of promise. I gulp down my coffee, zip out to the Rockton Aerodrome in Rockton, Ontario, grab a plane from the Southern Ontario Soaring Association, and head out on a 300-km adventure. The thermals are bad and the wind is strong. I fight my way to York Soaring, our sister club 60 […]

The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) and Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) recently conducted a survey to generate input from their member pilots in response to an FAA notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) introducing a new electronic Pilot Records Database (PRD) that would involve certain Part 91 operators. Based on the comments received, the […]

September 1, 2020, Walker, Minn. Piper PA-28-235 Cherokee 235 At about 2007 Central time, the airplane was destroyed when it collided with terrain while maneuvering near adverse weather. The solo pilot was fatally injured; flight conditions were unknown. The airplane departed Kirksville, Missouri, at about 1303 after adding 76.1 gallons of fuel, with an intended […]