Search Results for: general aviation inc

Hearing about John and Martha King’s encounter with law enforcement and reading about similar horror stories, I adjusted my eye patch and was about to swing through the rigging, knife in teeth, in defense of pilots’ rights. Like Clark Kent, I would use my journalistic skills to battle the forces of evil — menacing cops […]

There has been considerable consternation in the aviation media recently about the lack of progress in improving the general aviation accident rate. National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman recently expressed her frustration that the general aviation accident rate in the United States has essentially plateaued at around 1,500 accidents every year, emphasizing that the […]

If the George Zimmerman trial wasn’t enough to feed a media frenzy, a major airplane crash at one of the country’s busiest airports filled the remaining void. When I was contacted by a national TV network to validate a specific nuance of the 777 automation system, I actually considered that maybe this time the media […]

With all the literal and figurative bells and whistles in today’s cockpits, something as mundane as losing communications with ATC is rare. One reason is the stuff we have in the panel these days is a couple of light years ahead of even two decades ago in reliability. But loss of communications—going “no radio,” or Nordo—thanks to our installed avionics isn’t the only failure mode we might encounter. In fact, your airplane and its equipment may not even be the problem.

All pilots fear mid-air collisions (MACs), even though they’re relatively rare. The AOPA Air Safety Institute’s 2011 Nall Report, an annual look-see at general aviation’s safety record in the U.S., found only four of them. That means the other 1373 accidents occurring in the U.S. during 2010, the year examined, involved other causes, including the always-interesting stupid pilot tricks. Of the four mid-airs in 2010, one of them involved no fatalities; in only one MAC did everyone aboard both aircraft suffer fatal injuries.

Not a flight goes by when I don’t think about the potential for a landing-gear problem. It’s not that I’m a pessimist and think something is bound to happen—I don’t—but the moment you fly a complex aircraft, you’ve multiplied the number of things that can go wrong. I bristle when someone trots out the old “there are those who have and those who will” maxim about gear-up landings. It’s just not that simple.

The why doesn’t matter. It could be catastrophic engine failure, a mid-air, a broken fuel line or a severe downdraft, forcing you to the ground. The punchline is you’ve crashed, off-airport and in a rural location. If you followed all the advice in last month’s article, “The Art of Crashing,” the aircraft’s impact was at a low angle, at a low speed and you didn’t have too much downward g-loading, minimizing the chance of spinal compression injuries. What was once a capable flying machine now is spread across a nice long debris field, meaning you stretched out the crash and dissipated energy over a good distance.

When did you last experience an embarrassing moment on the takeoff roll? Have you ever had to taxi back to the ramp to deal with a problem discovered during the run-up? Any moments of tension or near-terror because you missed something during the pre-flight? Most pilots can recite at least one tale about discovering they missed something in the pre-flight inspection. The idea at its root is to never, ever start the engine without a thorough look-around to be sure all remains as it was when you last landed the airplane. In the case of the day’s first flight, you’re conducting an inspection to confirm the aircraft’s airworthiness, general condition, fuel status, etc.

Several reports claim David Riggs, a pilot with a checkered past who lost his FAA license not once but twice, is missing after his Lancair 320 crashed in a lake outside Shenyang, China. Riggs’ passenger, an 18-year-old Chinese translator, died in the crash. The Los Angeles Times reported that Riggs took off in rainy conditions […]

The current issue of FAA Safety Briefing targets aviation citizenship among general aviation pilots. It urges us to show our responsibilities toward fellow pilots by sharing values, customs and culture with the rest of the aviation community. Feature articles in the September/October 2013 issue include primers on developing intervention strategies for fellow pilots who may […]