Search Results for: oxygen

The day’s mission was to get me and my Debonair from Wichita, Kansas, to Las Vegas, Nevada, in loose formation with a friend who would be flying his Piper Comanche 180. Although we had scheduled this trip weeks ago, we both presumed the other guy a) had done this before and b) knew how. Over […]

Now that we’re staring at the weather picture from the depths of winter, perhaps you’ve been re-acquainted with how fronts make an impact on the weather. Fronts truly form one of the building blocks of meteorology. In the Air Force forecasting school I attended years ago, fronts were the very first topic that followed the […]

Everyday process and procedure takes on added meaning, purpose, and for this pilot, pleasure.

Meet a single-engine, very light jet equipped with a highly detailed MFD and Perspective Touch platform.

It was a moonless night in the valley, with a strong wind behind us from the north. I usually fly single-pilot, but that night I had a new hire, an old friend, with me. He was getting to know a new-to-him airplane. We talked about the terrain and the wind and the runway length, and […]

Last year I got my multi-engine rating as I consider transitioning to a pressured twin. One of my instructors reminded me that I’d need a high-altitude endorsement to fly something capable of topping 25,000 feet. I probably read that somewhere, but it didn’t register. It’s true—I need the endorsement so I went about getting it. […]

That typical one-hour fuel reserve most of us use for personal flying works great, mainly ’cause we rarely need it. In most cases, there’s four-plus hours of fuel for a two-hour flight that includes an alternate just down the road. Use a (conservative) default fuel burn to estimate it, and you’re all set. But when […]

Icing affects flight operations in many ways. Accordingly, we offer some thought-provoking reports from pilots who’ve been there. Little has been said about instrument malfunctions due to icing, and we discuss those in particular. Chilly Carburetors An instrument-rated Commercial pilot operating VFR experienced a sudden power interruption in his Cessna 150, followed by a surge […]

The aviation industry is strongly considering the zero-emission alternative—but does it really help the environment?

On the anniversary of the brothers’ first test flight, we talk with NAA award-winning balloon pilot Kim Magee.