Search Results for: wright

July 1999 will have a bit of infamy in the aviation world for years to come. Not only did New York (and the rest of us) lose JFK Jr. to a light plane accident, National Air and Space Museum chief Donald Engen died when the motorized glider in which he was riding suffered an in-flight breakup.

Of course, popular media managed to present startlingly inaccurate information to the general public about the safety of light plane flying, especially in its round-the-clock coverage of the search for Kennedy and his passengers. The misconceptions born out of that coverage are bound to stay with us long after the average American forgets what VFR means. Many people stubbornly concluded what theyd a…

When I was a new flyer, an old instructor named Tony Stubby Azzetti taught me how to hand-prop an airplane. Despite the lack of three fingers on one hand, he made it look easy, as though hed been swinging props to start airplane engines for decades. Always remember, he said as I took the propeller blade for the first time, that propeller cant see you and wont feel a thing if your melon gets in the way. Old Stubby sure knew how to teach.

Safety-conscious pilots will shake their heads in disbelief that anyone would intentionally grab a propeller and swing it. Good. Keep that attitude and youll live to be an old pilot. But some day, when your guard is down, you may be tempted to tw…

A student pilot was preflighting the cockpit of a Cessna 152, and as part of his routine, was checking the travel and friction of the throttle, mixture and carb heat knobs. Most pilots dont do this, but it was the detailed, deliberate and particular nature of this individual to check just about everything possible on the plane.

He was the kind of guy who would occasionally find himself the subject of some good-natured jokes from the other side of the FBO windows that faced the ramp, many of which were probably the result of a common, unspoken jealousy for a lack of a similar thoroughness. You can well imagine that the jokes came to a rapid stop the day he cycled the mixture from full lea…

At about 21:45 eastern time, a Piper PA-28-161 was damaged when it struck approach lights while landing at Dayton/Wright Brothers Airport. The CFI and student pilot were not injured. The student was making his first night flight and, on final approach, the CFI noted the VASI was red over red. He heard the engine power begin to increase and assumed that the student was correcting to get back on glide path. The CFI realized the student was not adding enough power and was reaching for the throttle when he heard a bang. The airplane touched down short of the runway and came to rest in a grass area. The CFI said he was not aware there were approach lighting stanchions at the approach end of the…

How to pick a forced landing site so your field of dreams doesnt turn into a nightmare. Hint: Altitude matters.

The anniversary of one of the most publicized general aviation accidents ever came and went, and almost on cue the NTSB released its official report on the crash that killed John F. Kennedy Jr. Together, they made a powerful reminder that one of the earliest identifiable pitfalls of flying is still with us today. Aptly named the graveyard spiral, it has taken its toll of lives since the invention of the airplane.

Like its cousin the tailspin, the entry is insidious – resulting from spatial disorientation – and the conclusion is often fatal. The entry pattern associated with either maneuver is similar, but the resultant maneuvering track quite different. Real-life testing and experience,…

The Twice Bitten article was good [Proficiency, July], but I remain curious about the accident statistics on twins. Fatalities, per the stats, are four times as high for a twin when an engine fails than for a single as you noted. Not hard to understand during takeoffs. But how do the stats include the numerous instances of engine failure in a twin that never make it into the database because the plane landed without incident?

My own admittedly limited database contains many instances. When an engine fails during cruise and landing phases of flight, I bet more singles dont land safely. What should I draw from the stats? Is my sense of twin security while flying over water and at nig…

Class B airspace can be complex and unforgiving, even to experienced pilots who think they know the ropes.

As summer takes hold, the days are getting long. Theyre also getting hot, which means the other thing that will be getting long is takeoff distance.

High temperatures – and therefore high density altitudes – affect every airplane, single-engine or multi, piston or jet. Higher elevations and bigger payloads only make the problem worse.

In a single-engine airplane, the loss of engine power makes the next step pretty easy to determine. If the engine failure happens on the ground, you will stop. If the failure happens in the air, you will land. Sir Isaac Newton assures us that this is so. Such outcomes are non-negotiable and cannot be changed.

In a multi-engine plane, it is not alway…

If, as hoary nautical tradition holds, it’s bad luck to rename a ship, then the poor old SS Sea Breeze was damned and damned again. The midsize (606 feet) cruise ship began life in 1958 as the Federico C, designed for service out of Genoa for immigrants heading to new lives in Buenos Aires and […]