Search Results for: Lear 45

As a brand, “Cessna Citation” conjures up a sense of solidity, of reliability, of conservatism, tradition and value. Utility trumps flash, the tried-and-true takes precedence over the new, and proven service wins out over promises. For decades Citations have sold themselves to customers who were looking to get a great value on an airplane with […]

If you are planning on attending the AOPA Fly-In this weekend at the organization’s headquarters in Frederick, Maryland, this video is a must-see. You need to learn the established approach procedure to reduce the risk of flying with the increased traffic flowing into Frederick Municipal Airport (KFDK). The procedure is further complicated by the fact […]

The FAA counted 100,993 Certified Flight Instructors (CFIs) on its rolls at the end of 2014. How many conduct advanced pilot training for specialties ranging from Search & Rescue (SAR) to crop dusting is unknown, but “demand is going up dramatically,” says Mo Rolfs, chief operations officer at Flying Tiger Aviation in Rayville, Louisiana, which […]

“I’m going to ask for 380 and another shortcut,” says Greg, sitting to my right and pointing to the CJ3’s MFD, which shows an arrival time of 16:19 Zulu. We are about three-quarters of the way down the East Coast en route from White Plains, New York, to Boca Raton, Florida, and we have a […]

(function(d, s, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) return; var js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = ‘//cdn4.wibbitz.com/static.js’; d.getElementsByTagName(‘body’)[0].appendChild(js); }(document, ‘script’, ‘wibbitz-static-embed’)); There are a lot of good reasons that some airplanes will never — and in some cases should never — fly again. Sometimes the safety, economic or logistical obstacles are just too great. Sometimes […]

Recent general aviation and air carrier accidents

One of the concerns many pilots express about doing their flight planning on a tablet computer is that they dont spend time with a chart and a plotter looking over a route. They end up starting a flight with less situational awareness about airports where they can bail out if something goes wrong en route. That, combined with what can become a rote fixation on selecting an IFR alternate based only on the regs regarding weather at the destination, is an invitation to poor decision-making when a little smoke in the cockpit means shutting off the electrical system a third of the way into the flight, or the engine starts running rough on initial climb from an airport thats below approach minimums.One way out of these dilemmas is to keep in mind the FARs are, by law, nothing more than minimum standards-and only looking at an alternate airport for the destination on an IFR flight of 500 miles might not be doing ourselves any favors. We always need an ace in the hole, and it doesnt have to be the one we tell the FAA about on the flight plan.

I was introduced to the art of buying and selling flying machines on a spring afternoon in 1965, standing next to an airplane salesman who’d just closed a deal on an AT-6 at Lunken Airport. The sound from that round engine as the buyer departed Runway 21R was glorious, but when it passed almost directly […]

“What’s that?” you wonder, as your back straightens and your ears come to attention. The engine coughs and continues to cough, spitting and hesitating before, suddenly, it dies and all goes eerily quiet. You pitch for best glide, run through your flows, read the checklists, but the engine refuses to restart. It has just become […]

One of the best things about an ILS is that you know what youre going to get. The boundaries of TERPS criteria mean they all work pretty much the same: You fly a published altitude to intercept a glideslope, ease down through the amorphous ether toward terra firma and either land or miss.Except for when that is so, so not the case. Take a look at the ILS Runway 16R into Reno/Tahoe (KRNO). On first glance, this is a simple ILS with the primary complication being some obvious terrain in the area. Terrain like that always warrants a close reading of the chart and its notes, usually to find the non-standard climb required if you must fly the missed. Thats not an issue in this case, but there are four other oddities to contend with-one of which is an outright error on the chart.