Search Results for: Lear 45

I first flew a Pilatus PC-12 Model 10 back in 2008 and found it made a nice, stable instrument platform. At 270 knots, it was no jet, but a walk through that gargantuan cabin on the ground with the massive rear cargo door open made no bones about the airplane’s ability to carry tons of […]

One takeaway from this tragedy: Altitude is the best defense.

I feel the pull of the Cessna 182’s changing lift vector as I turn to orbit just south and east of KPHL at 500 feet. We’re observing the changes along the New Jersey banks of the Delaware River—a very different “Jersey Shore”—and marking them with a string of photos across the water from the Philadelphia […]

A Tale of Two Airports: There seems to be a rivalry between San Diego International Airport (KSAN) and Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (KDTW) on who is the legitimate owner of Top Gun. TOPGN TWO ARRIVAL at KSAN has dogfights (DOGFTs) among TMCATs. But only two call signs of the protagonists. Goose (GUUSE) and Iceman […]

It’s Saturday morning at 0730. Weather is VFR and a million, and most of the flight schools and weekend warriors are calling up Ground with the ATIS, ready to go. Add student pilots, crosswinds, a runway closure and more. What are the chances of pilots missing something critical or letting expectation bias hit? That risk […]

In the mid-1990s, I worked at McDonnell-Douglas in Southern California and would rent a Cessna 152 every Wednesday at 5:00 pm to fly out of Long Beach airport for pleasure and to keep current. Co-workers knew of my flying routine and one day, a young woman asked if she could get a ride with me. […]

March 3, 2020, Hill City, Minn. Cessna P206 Super Skylane During a flight review, the instructor asked the pilot to fly a visual approach and execute a go-around. However, the airplane became “too low and too slow.” The landing gear contacted the snow-covered runway as engine power was being added and the airplane nosed over. […]

Maneuvering speed is something fledgling airplane pilots learn about early in their training. It’s one of the more important details to know about any airplane because it has implications for structural integrity. It’s also relevant to operating in turbulence and performing maneuvers, although its value isn’t on an airspeed indicator, mainly because it varies with […]

The FAA on April 29, 2020, released a special federal aviation regulation (SFAR 118—Relief For Certain Persons during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Outbreak) “to enable individuals to continue to exercise their airman certificate privileges during the national emergency.” Generally, the SFAR recognizes the incompatibility of flight training with social distancing and extends to June […]

If you spend much time around old-time pilots, you’ll eventually get around to one of them going off on a rant about how the kids today don’t know what the rudder pedals are for. From their perspective, they’re right. A lot of the airplanes the old-timers grew up with had squirrelly aerodynamics, exemplified by the […]