Search Results for: general aviation inc

Most pilots experienced in navigating with both VOR and GPS will prefer the latter. It’s easier, it’s more accurate and it’s available right down to the ground. The VOR technology—with the exception of ILS and where VOR stations are on the airport—enjoys only one advantage: It’s been around so long, most everyone knows how to use it. Well, everyone, that is, except pilots trained in aircraft lacking a VOR receiver, of which there are a growing number.

We all want to fly safely, but it doesn’t work out that way sometimes. The accident record is filled with instances in which a pilot or two failed to fully implement that desire. Although pilots always are finding new ways to bend airplanes, that’s not the norm. Instead, too many accidents are repeats of pilots’ past poor performances: Sadly, we keep doing the same things, but expect different results.

There’s no need to go all Type A over this, but piloting an aircraft is among those activities where it’s to our benefit to be something of a control freak. It pays because of all the many bad outcomes that can result from losing control. The variations and possibilities seem infinite, as pilots find new and innovative ways to let physics and aerodynamics take over from them. Stalls—on rotation, turning final and elsewhere—promise particularly harsh results while running off a runway, another common example, hurts less often and less badly.

PC flight simulators are excellent for sharpening our skills, but with one glaring exception: The artificial ATC communications included with the software just isn’t up to the task of providing a realistic flight experience. I didn’t really understand how important this was until I recently had the chance to fly X-Plane 10 using something remarkably […]

Late last month, ASTM International’s F44 Technical Committee met for the first time in Atlanta. The group aims to use industry consensus standards in revising the certification process for standard-category general aviation aircraft. The cost of Part 23 certification has been a major barrier to new aircraft development, and also to the process of retrofitting […]

Are you concerned about the sky gradually becoming filled with windowless aircraft controlled by someone miles (maybe even states) away? You’re not alone. But it may be that the real “threat” turns out to be less about midair collisions and more about increasingly complicated and restricted airspace rules to accommodate remotely piloted aircraft operations. They […]

Flying editor-in-chief Robert Goyer has received the National Business Aviation Association’s 2012 David W. Ewald Platinum Wing Award for lifetime achievement in aviation journalism. As many of you know, Goyer has been with Flying since 1994, serving as the magazine’s editor-in-chief since 2010. During his time at Flying, he was written and photographed hundreds of […]

There’s little debate that the prevalence in today’s airplanes of modern glass cockpit displays, GPS navigators, datalink weather receivers and the host of other high-tech gear that we now take almost for granted has in fact made flying easier and safer. Still, the already-too-high accident rate for light general aviation airplanes hasn’t budged in the […]

At Redbird’s annual migration on Tuesday, Pete Bunce, president of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, gave an update on the FAA’s efforts to modernize the agency’s airplane certification paradigm. The idea is to make it easier for manufacturers to certify airplanes as appropriate to the airplane’s complexity instead of, in Bunce’s words, certifying them to […]

Former U.S. Senator George McGovern, the South Dakota native son and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, died on Sunday at the age of 90 following a long illness. In the wake of the anti-Vietnam war movement, McGovern made a name for himself as a staunch anti-war candidate. Despite strong national sentiment against the war, McGovern lost […]