Pilot Proficiency

Closely following the National Transportation Safety Board’s March release of an investigative report into deficiencies in the pilot weather reporting system, the Board yesterday published a three-page safety alert – SA 064 – designed to remind aviators of the identified weaknesses in the current Pirep system while encouraging them to help create better reports because […]

The National Association of Flight Instructors launches its new professional development program, a cooperative effort between NAFI and the aviation industry, tomorrow night via live streaming on FAASTeamTV. The new PDP segment begins at 8 p.m. EST. The program is the culmination of years of effort to give NAFI members a way to share instructional […]

Instrument approach plates contain considerable amounts of valuable information. But that information only has value to a pilot who understands the symbology displayed on the chart and possesses a reasonable understanding of the ATC system and the procedures around which the approach was created. All too often, pilots expect air traffic control to simply use […]

Embed from Getty Images With loss of control still the primary cause of aircraft fatalities, the FAA last year released the new Airmen Certification Standards, some aspects of it controversial, to replace the practical test standards for pilots seeking a private or an instrument rating. The goal was to create a better-trained pilot before they […]

Thunderstorm Avoidance without Onboard Radar: Maintain VFR conditions on top as long as possible to observe and avoid buildups. If getting on top is impossible or becomes impossible to maintain, the best option is to descend as low as possible to what may be VFR conditions below the clouds. Maintain VFR conditions below the bases […]

After 14 years of flying my second homebuilt, preceded by nine years in my first, I wish I could say that most things that can go wrong already have, but the gods might think me insolent. By now, however, I can at least say with some confidence what has worked and what has not. My […]

I hadn’t seen Jerry Kemp in a while, but an email from him recently brought a flood of memories and a delightful (in retrospect) reminiscence about this hero and friend, an FAA safety meeting and a place called Bristol Village in rural southeastern Ohio. By the late 1980s, I’d swapped my job as principal operations […]

Among the various fascinating denizens of the air sharing our friendly skies, there are a great many creatures of habit — but perhaps none quite to the degree of the common airline pilot. This species, to which I belong, takes great pride and comfort in its everyday routines, the highly scripted rituals of flight and […]

After decades of faulting pilots involved in collisions or near-misses for inadequate vigilance, the NTSB now officially concedes that see-and-avoid is a highly unreliable system.

I had to cancel a flight the other day and go airline, and I was mad at myself. Not because I made the wrong decision — a cutoff low aloft meant the weather along my route was really ugly — but because my priorities were out of whack. I had squeezed flying into a narrow […]