Search Results for: wright

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 […]

||| |—|—| | | | At first glance, I don’t even recognize him. Nine years ago, Hank Potter was a vibrant, jolly soul, full of laughter, fire and stories of being Jimmy Doolittle’s navigator on the famous B-25 raid of Tokyo in 1942. Today, he and the 11 other “Doolittle Raiders” who were able to […]

CAE’s full-flight simulators create an illusion of reality that can fool even the most cynical pilots. A web-based distance-learning program is under development. At least the oxygen masks didn’t drop down,” I said defensively as I bounced the Airbus A320 during a hard landing. It was a short field carved into a hillside on the […]