Search Results for: maintaining your airplane

Are the $100 hamburgers getting old? Have you visited every airport restaurant within 100 miles so many times that the staff greets you by name and has your favorite meal ready? Did you already give all your friends rides, so that you are now reduced to approaching people on the street, like the press gangs […]

Get behind the power curve and you may run out of altitude, airspeed and power all at the same time

Planning a flight in an airliner is much like making the same flight in a GA airplane, except its completely different

Many pilots base the go-no-go decision on ceiling and visibility. Yet the accident record shows there are other considerations of equal or greater importance. For example, how many times have you delayed or canceled a flight because of forecast or reported severe turbulence enroute or at your destination?

The hazard of thunderstorms is obvious and can be visualized. However, high and low level clear air turbulence is often treated casually. When clear air turbulence is encountered above 15,000 feet, it is referred to as turbulence encountered outside of convective clouds. At lower altitudes it is simply mechanical or low level turbulence.

Low level turbulence often takes the form of…

It should come as no surprise that more than half of all general aviation aircraft are more than 25 years old, and more than 25% are past their 35th birthdays. Like everything else thats getting older, an aging aircraft can experience a host of problems, including decreases in both performance and structural integrity.

As aircraft age, undetected or uncorrected wear, fatigue, corrosion and creep can decrease an aircrafts ability to sustain the fail-safe loads designed into it. The most graphic example of fatigue and corrosion causing a serious problem in flight comes is the Aloha Air Lines B-737 accident in 1988, and that should be enough to scare any pilot. Clearly prevention, timely d…

It would take a clinical psychologist to explain, but there are some people who are not meant to fly airplanes.

It certainly doesnt take a superman or superwoman to become a competent pilot, of course. Like riding a bicycle, most people can learn to do it competently, with a few becoming exceptionally skillful. The flip side of that is that there are also those who cant get the hang of it.

So it is with flying: There are some people who, for whatever the reason, simply can not put it all together and fly competently. The difference is that in aviation, this apparent learning disability costs lives and money, rather than scrapes and bruises.

My first exposure to this phenomenon w…

I really like Aviation Safety, but after I read Climb and Maintain What? [Risk Management, December] I wondered how it got there. Then I thought it might have really been a plant to get readers to write on this topic.

I agree that the hemispherical rule has its problems, exactly as outlined. To address these, I was taught during my primary instruction to fudge a bit on the altitude. Therefore I might cruise at 4400, or 5650, within 250 ft of the xx,500 ft levels during VFR. In fact, my instructor never wanted us at an even height of x,500 or x,000, even when too low for the hemispherical rule, and I stay away from those altitudes still. In 500 hours, I have had 3 near-misses, sepa…

Something about flying a twin grabs your attention. Sitting up high, a fistful of throttles, clear one, turning one – it all adds up to a feeling of power and control.

Thats appropriate, of course, because power and control are the big issues in learning to fly a light twin. Its not a matter of having power and control, its that you can lose them very quickly when something goes wrong. Flying a light twin isnt for everyone, and its not a panacea that takes all the risk out of flying. But with proper instruction, flying a twin is, in some ways, as good as it gets.

Are Two Better Than One?
The biggest myth of light twins is that they are inherently safer than singles…

Thanks for the usual informative issue of Aviation Safety.

No-Fly Zones [April, Weather Tactics] was of special interest, as I fly in and about the Sierra Nevada Mountains most of the time, with home base at Reno Stead Airport.

There is one small addition that I would like to make to Ms. Lambs article. We should spend some time talking to our friends without engines, as they must pay attention to the air movements over the mountains.

At least some reading of the good books on that subject would be of benefit.

The accident over Independence Pass Lamb mentioned could have been avoided by using ridge lift to help.

A couple of years ago I stopped at Aspen for fuel in my old…

The FAA has set minimum requirements that pilots must meet in order to legally fly, but meeting those minimums probably arent enough to keep you safe.

A couple of years ago Daniel Webster College established an orientation program for incoming freshmen in which they would be indoctrinated into the ways of college life. One speaker, a professor of Humanities, discussed the virtues of the educated man in days gone by versus the learned man or woman of today. One of his points was that although there was a time when an individual could, in fact, read every book in existence and learn all that educated people should know, those days were long gone. His point was that it is no longer possib…