Search Results for: wright

That year winter arrived on the heels of a cold front that marked the end of an interminably long and hot Ohio Valley summer, one that lasted nearly to Thanksgiving. Arriving at the ‘drome for a flight check I got a brutal reminder that airports are the coldest places on the planet. Back to the […]

I realized I was taking a risk when I put out the request for feedback from pilots on what they want controllers to know. This would be a good opportunity to “rant” about controllers, and I was afraid I might get quite a few pilots who only wanted to complain. I didn’t need to worry. […]

Location, as any real estate agent will tell you, is everything. For years, I’d watched the warbird formations fly over the field at Oshkosh without any great sense of awe. That’s not to say it wasn’t cool to see diamond after diamond of T-6, T-28 or T-34 trainers fly overhead. But the sight never made […]

Theres little I find more exciting than launching for a new destination across unfamiliar territory. Exploring the great unknown makes adventurers out of pilots who use their planes for, you know, actually going places. But, getting there requires a little-sometimes a lot of-extra planning. My bride enjoys the adventure of personal airplane travel as much as any pilot; she also appreciates the added risks involved when tackling new terrain, new airspace, new weather systems and new destinations. Shes such a good sport, in fact, weve enjoyed the thrill many times. Our first “real” trip took us on a 2300-mile journey starting only five days after passing my private pilot checkride. Then, there was our first time to Sun n Fun; to coastal North Carolina and the sands of the Wright Brothers; our first flight to Oshkosh and-well, you get the picture. We also made a couple of international trips that still stand out years later: Key West to Grand Cayman for one, and Cancun, by hugging the Bay of Campeche to Vera Cruz, then the West Yucatan city of Campeche and across the Yucatan. The latter one took two days each way.

Captain Johnny Miller, a self-taught pilot whose flying career began with barnstorming during aviation’s golden age, has died at 102. Miller flew his own Beech Bonanza throughout the country up until a few years ago. Over his career, he flew the airmail, set a transcontinental record in a Pitcairn autogiro, competed in air races, served […]

It’s the calmness with which they tell the tales that’s most striking. “One time I flew unconscious for an hour and a half. I lost my oxygen from shrapnel and passed out. I came to out of gas, with the engine dead, and in a spin.” “When I got shot down the second time, I […]

I Shivered a little that September morning at Nashua Airport, on a ladder with my finger in the left tank of the Cessna 180 taildragger. Good, the 100LL was puddling over the flaps. Topping these tanks was kind of funky because the airplane had rubber bladders and stiffly hinged flappers under the caps … new […]

From almost our very first flying lesson, pilots are taught what to do in the event a single-engine airplanes lone powerplant fails. As with too many concepts at that early stage of our training, we basically accept what were taught without many questions. Later, as we gain experience, we begin to think more about those early lessons and try to apply to them what our experience has taught us. In turn, many questions can arise. If your airplane ever becomes a glider, you would suddenly become very interested in its new aerodynamics. How promptly and accurately you can remember to make the most of the variables at your disposal would play a large part in determining where and how softly you land. Lets take a look at those variables and how they can affect your emergency glide.

In many ways, my AirVenture experience at Oshkosh this year was one of my best. On the day before the official opening of the show, I won a Garmin 496. It was during Garmin’s press conference where the new top-of-the-line GPSMAP was introduced. The contest was to guess closest to the number of handheld aviation […]