Search Results for: professional aircraft services

It was a beautiful day. Light winds. Clear skies. Towering, snowcapped Rocky Mountain peaks surrounded the 9,000-foot runway at Eagle, Colorado, from which I was about to depart. I was at the controls of a Pilatus PC-12, a sizable single-engine turboprop built to carry thousands of pounds of people or gear. Today we were light. […]

Some 320 pilots are sanctioned to perform at airshows in the U.S. and Canada, according to the International Council of Air Shows (ICAS). Matt Chapman is in the top tier, his pumpkin yellow Cap 231EX and signature quadruple Split S maneuver known to millions. Growing up, Chapman flew RC models until he saw a Pitts […]

I’ve been an airplane nut and have longed to have one of my very own for nearly as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, I have also been an inveterate cheapskate since childhood. Aviation is a fine vocation for a tightwad; if not quite a job requirement to begin with, frugality is at least one […]

The airplane repo agent has been tracking this prey for weeks. Sitting on the ramp is his prize — a pristine, late-model Piper Malibu with a gorgeous paint job and perfect leather interior. A loan payment hasn’t been made in months, and the bank wants this asset back now. It should fetch a premium price […]

Are you thinking about taking a new direction in your aviation career? Do you want to join a new field with untapped opportunity? Unmanned aerial systems may provide the path you’re looking for. With degrees now offered at more than 50 accredited colleges worldwide, UAS is the next big thing in aviation studies. Here’s how […]

There are many rewarding careers in aviation that don’t require a pilot’s license. If you have a passion for aviation and experience in sales, marketing or communications, there may be more jobs out there than you imagined. Job Description: Establish corporate brands, develop advertising campaigns, achieve sales goals and shape public opinion for companies ranging […]

With the iPad propped up on the restaurant table, I picked away at my veggie omelet. Not entirely confident that the almost cartoonish radar data of the flight planning program was presenting an accurate picture, I switched to my professional weather rock — the WSI program. I thought it apropos that I had spent the […]

It’s a beautiful day and you’re enjoying the view from your cockpit. There is not a burble of turbulence in the air and you have a 15-knot tailwind pushing you along. So far it’s a perfect flight. But suddenly you smell smoke in the cockpit. You look around trying to determine where the smell is […]

You may be intimidated by the thought of international flying, particularly with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Electronic Advance Passenger Information System — eAPIS — which was implemented in 2009. While you are subjected to major fines if you don’t comply, it is not a very complicated system. It simply involves an online portal […]

For many pilots, the thought of stepping out of the house, getting into an airplane and taxiing just a few hundred feet to the runway — all without ever touching a car door — is the ultimate fantasy. For the thousands who live in residential airparks around the country, that way of life isn’t just […]