Search Results for: general aviation inc

Mirroring the conclusions of several other recent industry forecasts, the results of a business aviation market survey conduced by JetNet, a Utica, New York-based research firm, predict a surge in bizjet demand in the next decade.** ** JetNet has released its first-ever 10-year business jet delivery forecast, predicting worldwide deliveries of 11,476 new business jets […]

The NTSB’s top 10 list of wanted improvements this year prominently includes the poor safety record of general aviation. ** ** “The United States has not had a fatal large commercial aviation accident since February 2009,” said the NTSB in a release highlighting its concerns over GA safety. “Each year,” the release stated, “hundreds of […]

__You may be one of many people with a passion for flying who think that learning to fly is unachievable. But before you hang up your dream, you need to explore all your options. The number of ways to learn is limited, and for most people, it requires some financial resources. But there are other […]

Like it or not, Cirrus is now officially a Chinese company. I know that’s a bitter pill to swallow for many who viewed the Duluth, Minnesota-based company as a unique triumph of American entrepreneurial and aeronautical spirit. But let’s face it, Cirrus has been owned, in essence, by Middle Eastern investors for the last decade. […]

As an avionics guy, Im often asked if I would rather deal with total avionics failure in an all-glass or round-gauge aircraft. My preference is all-glass because total failure is pretty unlikely. And even if it did happen, the situation shouldnt be debilitating. With dual batteries, dual electrical systems, standby instruments and a portable GPS, theres little reason why you couldnt put down safely. But for an older retrofit panel, the risks are elevated. You dont have to be an avionics tech to understand what makes your panel tick, but you do need to know what can make it a ticking time bomb. Perhaps you pushed the wrong button sequence for an autopilot-coupled approach, or maybe an encounter with ice has turned your Aspen PFD into an expensive tic-tac-toe game.

A good portion of our first few hours of flight instruction-the ones coming after learning basic control-involve getting to know the traffic pattern and perfecting what little takeoff and landing technique we can muster. Using the traffic pattern is convenient: We stay in a relatively small area yet experience one takeoff, a climb, a descent and turns, along with a brief period of straight-and-level flight. One outcome of staying in the traffic pattern and doing touch-and-goes is we get to practice many of the basic VFR skills-along with takeoffs and landings-in a relatively short period of time. The educational law of primacy tells us learning to fly a traffic pattern also teaches us it is the only way to properly approach a landing area in an airplane and-to some extent-it is.

The mantra “train the way you fly and fly the way you train” has been popular recently, yet we continue training pilots merely to pass the knowledge and practical tests, rather than on how they will operate in the real world. These tests emphasize rote knowledge and performance of specific maneuvers, rather than instructive scenarios emphasizing higher order pilot skills. This results in a pilots all-too-frequent failure to properly manage the risks inherent in typical general aviation flight operations. In an effort to bring focus to these issues and chart a course for beginning the reform process, the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE) conducted a Pilot Training Reform Symposium in Atlanta, Ga., on May 4-5, 2011.

Kick the tires, light the fires.” So goes a popular, flippant saying about preflight inspections. Most of the time, thats what we and various accident reports would label an “inadequate preflight inspection.” Sometimes-immediately after stopping long enough to drop off or load a passenger, for example-it might be adequate. After all, we just flew it in here-its a perfectly good airplane; why bother risking burnt fingers to check the engine oil or soiling our clothes to check tire pressure? Indeed, we dont go to such trouble when getting in a car; why are we conducting an inspection at all? Thats easy: Because despite the overall safety of general aviation, regardless of our comfort with flying and/or with the specific airplane, the hard truth is that airplanes are terribly unforgiving of mechanical imperfection.

Some of aviation’s biggest names are banding together and taking legal action in an attempt to preserve flying privacy and reverse the elimination of the Block Aircraft Registration Request (BARR) program, a move recently announced by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).** ** BARR currently allows aviators to block the public dissemination of their flight information, […]

Following its successful pilot training reform symposium held in Atlanta on May 4 and 5, the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE) has issued a list of 30 training recommendations that it says can improve general aviation safety while also increasing the number of new student pilot starts. The proposals focus on ways to […]