Pilot Proficiency

In VFR Conditions: Squawk — 7600 Continue flight VFR at a VFR altitude (even in Class A airspace) and land as soon as practicable at the nearest suitable airport. Do not continue to your destination if there is a suitable airport for you to land at unless you’re just minutes from your original destination. Flying another […]

Whenever I start wondering if the well will run dry, I find myself embroiled in something so preposterous, spectacular, outrageous or dumb that it’s worth writing about. But I have to confess: I was less than proud about this latest escapade and made several attempts to explain it away as a minor, moderately embarrassing but […]

I didn’t know Irving Smith all that well, but I learned an awful lot at his funeral. As my wife, Cathy, and I huddled with other mourners beneath a tent stretched above to shield us from the heat, I heard of Irving’s years in the Navy and his subsequent service for 25 years as an air traffic […]

A Change for the Better The ACS will save lives, making situational awareness a habit. By John King/Flying He was leaving from a job in his beloved Cessna Cardinal. He took off from a remote airport on a dark night. Light snow was falling. He did not make it home. He had simply exceeded his […]

Modern commercial aviation marvels us daily with its enviable safety record. Pioneers such as Donald Douglas, William Boeing and Dutch Kindelberger pursued passionately the operational consistency and reliability we see today as the world of commercial aviation continues to improve upon its stellar safety record with each passing year. The ultimate achievement? A virtually accident-free […]

A quick turn of the key is all a pilot usually needs to start the engine and go, but have you ever wondered what’s really going on beyond the fire wall to excite those spark plugs? The aircraft components that make it happen, of course, are the magnetos — simple and highly reliable electrical generators. […]

It was a warm spring day at Flagstaff. The wind was down Runway 21 at 16 knots with gusts to 22. The density altitude at the airport, 7,000 feet above sea level, was 9,000 feet; but that would not be a problem for the lightly loaded A36 Bonanza that taxied away from the FBO a […]

It was a sunny Friday afternoon as I gathered my friends at our usual meeting point, the local airport coffee shop. We were off for a weekend of fun and leisure after a long week at the office. We departed San Fernando International Airport in the city of ­Buenos Aires, Argentina, in a 1980 Baron B55 and […]

If you want to ensure your engine has the best chances of reaching TBO and beyond, here’s advice that could end up saving you big time: Stop listening to all the supposed “experts” in airport coffee shops and online forums who claim they know it all. There’s a good chance they don’t — and the […]

While learning to fly can appear daunting at times, another challenge lying in wait for would-be aviators is learning to maintain a pilot logbook, a struggle that demands keeping a calculator and plenty of Wite-Out close by. Or at least it used to. Ready to become one of the solutions to the problem, Pilot Partner’s […]