Search Results for: general aviation inc

With the 2020 mandate for ADS-B Out equipment for aircraft flying in controlled airspace rapidly approaching — and the FAA offering a $500 equipment rebate to the first 20,000 aircraft owners to get in line — now is a great time to commit to a unit to avoid the mad rush before the compliance deadline. […]

An FAA review of helicopter incidents and accidents over the past five years has identified several accidents in which loss of control (LOC) was encountered immediately after liftoff while light on the skids/gear, or from other issues caused by missed checklist items. With those operational issues in mind, the agency recently issued a safety alert […]

President-elect Donald Trump this week named Elaine Chao as his choice to head the Department of Transportation. “Secretary Chao’s extensive record of strong leadership and her expertise are invaluable assets in our mission to rebuild our infrastructure in a fiscally responsible manner,” Trump said in a statement. Throughout his campaign, Trump proposed to spend $1 […]

At an event hosted at Clay Lacy Aviation’s brand new facility at the Van Nuys Airport in Van Nuys, California, a crowd of hundreds of aviation enthusiasts gathered to celebrate the life of famed military, test and airshow pilot R. A. Bob Hoover. Masters of ceremonies Sean D. Tucker and Danny Clisham encouraged the crowd […]

Octobers article, Where the Drones Are, has no place in Aviation Safety. The very tone of it offends my safety senses honed over 59 years of private, commercial and military flying. Think about where they are. Then dont go there. Silly. The entire article belongs in a Drones Today magazine.

Loss of control in-flight (LOC-I) has become the safety issue du jour, and justifiably so. According to the NTSB, between 2001 and 2011, over 40 percent of fatal fixed-wing GA accidents occurred because pilots lost control of their airplanes. Takeoff and climb, landing and maneuvering are regarded to be the flight phases in which pilots are most susceptible to LOC-I,

Most of us fly aircraft powered by piston engines, a basic technology dating back to the late 19th century. Meanwhile, the modern air-cooled aircraft piston engines basic configurations hasnt changed since before WWII. Given the power output for their weight and fuel consumption, theres no better solution. But hundreds of metal parts going through thousands of heat cycles year after year eventually find a way to break.

I get kind of worked up when Im unsure. Last year, I hauled a load out of a backcountry strip (Sulphur Creek, Idaho, ID74) that included a 320-pound elk, my brother and me, plus all our gear for eight days in my Cessna 180. Field elevation was 5835 feet, and I remember that the takeoff used up a lot of the 3300-foot runway. I went through the numbers over and over before I left and when we got home, I confirmed the loading cargo put us right at gross weight on takeoff.

To assume that an aircraft automation system has a will of its own and will try to kill us would be anthropomorphic. Autopilots and other automation systems have not reached that stage of sophistication. Not yet. What can-and too often does-happen, however, is that flight crews turn the flying duties over to the autopilot and relax. With frightening repetition, this ends in disaster.

The RNAV approach is a type of GPS-based procedure that is becoming ubiquitous in general aviation as the FAA continues to roll it out at thousands of airports around the United States. If you’re adept at flying an ILS approach, RNAV LPV procedures (offering “localizer performance with vertical guidance”) should be very familiar to you, […]