Search Results for: general aviation inc

Some days are like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall: Youve planned well, the airplane is ready and fueled, youre fit to fly the trip…only the trip isnt ready for you. Best-laid plans and all that, but along the way something changed. You have to divert. You need a new plan. Maybe its because Mother Nature threw up a wall with swirling black clouds spelling out, “Go away!” or spread soft-but-deadly IFR scud on the flight path of the VFR pilot. Maybe someone landing at your destination forgot to put down the gear before flaring above the airports only runway. The Fates can deal up a common ground loop or any one of a dozen other ways to effectively mark a big white “X” on your destinations runway.

During checkouts of rated pilots, I usually ask them to explain why the rudder is on the airplane. More than half of rated pilots will tell me the rudder helps turn the aircraft, which is not only wrong but is a very dangerous belief. Less than half of pilots will correctly identify the main purpose of the rudder, to correct for adverse yaw. By failing to correctly understanding the rudders purpose, these pilots exhibit a failure in our training system. Moreover, by misusing the airplanes primary controls, they arent flying it properly or efficiently. This realization has many implications-an indictment of our training systems among them-but the dangers of misusing the rudder also must be acknowledged. Lets discuss the rudders proper role, plus the effects and dangers of misusing primary controls.

While none of us plan to crash our airplanes, stuff happens. The NTSBs database is replete with accident reports involving events like engine failures and ensuing off-airport landings where the engine started and ran fine after the investigators arrived. In many of them, plenty of fuel was aboard and carburetor ice was ruled out. Most of those reports go on to state the engine failed for unknown reasons. We cant choose when well have to set one down but-by avoiding hostile terrain like mountains and oceans, or flying only in daytime VFR-we can choose many of the conditions well experience. We also have the ability to maximize the likelihood of a favorable outcome.

Flight training specialist ATP isn’t listening to the doom and gloom about the sad state of general aviation shipments and billings for the first three quarters of 2010. It just ordered six new Piper Seminole light twins, which, when delivered before year end, will increase the school’s fleet of Seminoles to 87 nationwide, complemented by […]

A little over a year ago a good friend asked if I would consider writing a column about a skytyping/airshow operation. My friend was a former chief pilot at our New York domicile, and through the years the job had given him the opportunity to become acquainted with pilots that had unique backgrounds; one of […]

Donna F. Wilt, Ph.D., is an ATP, a Master CFI and an associate professor of aviation at Hampton University. She says: “The FAA states that an applicant for a student-pilot certificate must be at least 14 years old for the operation of a glider or balloon and 16 years old for other categories of aircraft. […]

General aviation is still in the doldrums, reflected by low third quarter numbers from the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA). Deliveries dipped to 420 aircraft, that’s 23.4 percent lower than Q3 2009. Stacked up against the same time period in 2008, it’s even more depressing — down by almost 60 percent. But that was the […]

A couple of books I’ve been dipping into lately strike me as epitomizing some changes that have occurred in the past 50 or 60 years. One of them, Wolfgang Langewiesche’s classic Stick and Rudder, found its way to me through an old friend who, being well into his 80s, sold his airplane and with great […]

It seems as though our most vivid memories come from some of our worst experiences in life. While many pilots don’t remember their first exposure to structural icing, they probably will never forget their worst. For many, it remains etched in their brain forever. But, we can avoid making painful lasting memories if we do […]

Conservatives had plenty to cheer about at the close of Election Day 2010, as incumbents were swept away in a wave of dissatisfaction with the status quo in Washington. But for general aviation interest groups, the new class of congressmen represents a new class to be educated about our industry. And in the case of […]