Search Results for: Lear 45

As the airplane was vectored to avoid cells and areas of heavy precipitation, the controller queried the pilot about his inability to maintain assigned headings. The pilot reported that his autopilot had kicked off and that the winds are really weird up here. At about 1310, the airplane slowed to about 70 knots groundspeed on a northeasterly heading before it began an accelerating 90-degree right turn to the south. By 1313, the controller again asked, …appears you’ve turned back to the northwest and…are you going to turn back eastbound? The pilot replied, I don’t know what’s going on up here. I’m working on instruments…acting really goofy here. Shortly thereafter, the airplane turned and descended from a northerly heading sharply to its right. The radar track tightened to the right as the target rapidly descended, then disappeared at about 1315 in an area that depicted heavy precipitation.

Pilots fly for a variety of reasons. If youre like me, transportation is the main reason to own an airplane. Flying a single-engine general aviation airplane can be an effective way to travel for business and personal reasons, especially in this era of degrading, inflexible and unpredictable airline service. However, to safely use small aircraft for this purpose and manage the risks, you need to expand the scope of your typical planning efforts and be ready to change schedules and even cancel some portions of a trip. This is especially true if, like me, your travel requirements include the entire United States.

The flight lasted all of 11 minutes. It is hard to imagine how such a short leg could be of such rapture, but it was. Credit must be given to the days that preceded the flight, because they hold the key to the distilled delight and might explain the hyperbole. Tampa, Florida, to Lakeland, Florida, […]

Paraphrasing the 19th century British politician John Dalberg-Acton’s well-known take on the corrupting influence of power, “Power tends to spoil pilots, and additional power spoils them even more.” No matter how fast an airplane flies, there’s always someone wondering why it can’t cruise just a little faster, or climb a little quicker or carry just […]

Tobias Smollett, though not a pilot, pulled off a couple of good things. He wrote novels and practiced medicine in Covent Garden in the 18th century. He pointed out that when one has given his life to a pursuit, his ideas and pronouncements might, in fact, sound arbitrary or inane to the unschooled. Mark Twain […]

Boeing took the first steps to get its 737 MAX aircraft back in the air in March with a software update to reduce the influence of an automated pitch control system and reduce the chances that it will trigger spuriously. The focus of the update is the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, which was chiefly designed to counter the MAXs tendency to pitch up at high angles of attack while being hand flown and push the nose over in the case of an impending stall. In the original design, MCAS used data from one of two angle of attack indicators to determine the deflection angle of the horizontal stabilizer. Its believed faulty data from an AOA played a role in the fatal crashes of a Lion Air MAX 8 last October and an Ethiopian Airlines MAX 8 in March. The new software is reported to draw data from both AOAs and limit the MCAS to moving the tail feathers only once, instead of repeatedly countering pilot inputs. Implementation of the software was expected in April after FAA review.

The number is (650) 446-6777. Just text the word METAR or TAF followed by the ICAO airport identifier of interest and youll quickly get a reply with the requested information. Even international airports are available. If you want to get hourly updates, you can subscribe (for free) by putting SUB first in your text message. Thus, to get hourly METARS, for instance, for Walla Walla, WA, (KALW) youd text SUB METAR KALW until you no longer wanted them and sent STOP METAR KALW.

There comes a time in most pilots’ lives when they’re faced with a tough decision: continue renting an airplane from a local flight school or club, or buy one of their own. Maybe there’s a sweet little bird you’ve had your eye on already. You’ve chatted with the insurance agent, you’ve looked into hangar or […]

The Instrument rating is one of the most challenging ratings to achieve, with complex concepts that have to be well understood in order to soar through the clouds. To help candidates in the learning process, King Schools has updated its Instrument Rating Ground School & Test Prep Course with new material to compliment the previously […]

Piper Aircraft announced two new value-priced additions to its trainer-class of aircraft on the opening day of Sun N’ Fun at Lakeland Florida. The company showed off its proof of concept Piper Pilot 100 and Pilot 100i. The basic 100 includes Garmin G3X Touch Certified avionics and a standard two pilot configuration while the instrument […]