Search Results for: general aviation inc

General aviation flight operations in Europe often are radically different from those in the United States, yet GA pilots across the pond face some of the same safety issues confronting pilots in the U.S. Meanwhile, European GA pilots and operators also must battle safety issues unique to Europe, including uneven infrastructure and high operating costs, which can limit training and proficiency flying. As a result, comparing GA in Europe to its counterpart in the U.S. offers some risk management lessons for pilots who are increasingly facing similar challenges, no matter their geographic location.

According to the FAA, flight training has changed very little since the dawn of regulated aviation. In fact, a private pilot trained to standards outlined in the Civil Aeronautics Regulations, circa the 1940s, would likely do quite well in most operations required by todays practical test. This is because many of the basic skills needed to pilot an aircraft have changed very little. However, the development of new technologies and a rapidly evolving airspace system have outpaced current training methods. Moreover, the FAA and the flight training community now have over a centurys worth of experience upon which to draw when determining how best to train pilots. While the military and airline communities have leveraged this experience, the general aviation community has been slow to make use of the lessons learned.

One of this magazines missions is to help reduce general aviations accident rates. Ideally, there would be no fatalities. We want to see an end to poverty and war, too, but were not holding our breath on either. In the world of aircraft, a mechanical world, things are still going to break and pilots are going to have to respond quickly, thoughtfully, and appropriately in order to make aircraft accident fatalities go away. Sometimes they may have to augment that skill with luck, too.

Year after year, far and away the largest number of fixed-wing accidents result from attempts to get those airplanes back onto the ground. So says the AOPA Air Safety Institutes 23rd Joseph T. Nall Report, examining general aviation safety during 2011. Landing accidents are more than twice as frequent as any other pilot-related accident category, according to the Report. Thats the bad news. The good news is we can do something about it: improve our performance.Theres no question landing an airplane is a complex task, but one way to ensure we always perform well is consistency: do it the same way each time and youll eventually get good at it. In other words, we need to make our landings routine, not excitement-filled adventures where the outcome is in doubt until the last moment.

I had to land within 200 feet of the white mark to pass the last phase of the checkride. Easy, I thought, as I turned the Schweizer 2-33 sailplane onto final. I’ll show this guy how good I am. I’ve got to hold 45 knots, 300 feet — that’s a little fast; let’s apply more […]

A debate is percolating online about the risks of flying jets single-pilot after the crash of an Embraer Phenom 100 in Maryland earlier this month that killed six, including three people on the ground. Former Flying editor Richard Collins weighed in on his website, arguing that the FAA shouldn’t approve any jet for single-pilot operations […]

The great promise of ADS-B is that it will eventually offer free traffic and weather services for those pilots willing to pay for the equipment and displays. But until everyone has ADS-B Out-required by 2020-a technology called TIS-B (Traffic Information Services-Broadcast) will fill the trafffic gap, allowing you to see everything ATC sees within a reasonable range of a radar site, presuming you and the radar site are suitably equipped. Lets explore how TIS-B works and how it fits into the current state of ADS-B.

Daher-Socata today announced it has signed on as a major partner with Airbus Group’s VoltAir subsidiary for the design, development and certification of a new electric airplane unveiled earlier this year called the E-Fan 2.0. The all-electric two-seater is the first product in what is being billed as a full-scale electric aircraft development program, launched […]

A new test pilot school, the International Flight Test Institute, announced that it will open its doors to students starting in the new year in Mojave, California. The school will train its students to become flight test pilots and flight test engineers within commercial, business and general aviation industries. IFTI will use a fleet of […]

The FAA yesterday issued another five exemptions for commercial UAS operations to four companies under Section 333 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. The new exemptions greatly broaden the spectrum for legal commercial UAS uses, which has previously only been approved for movie making operations operating in controlled environments. The companies that […]