Pilot Proficiency

The pilot of a Glasair Sportsman GS-2 was temporarily blinded after his aircraft took a direct hit from a wedge-tailed eagle at 5,500 feet. Wedge-tailed eagles typically weigh between seven and eight pounds. The incident, reported by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), serves as another reminder of the substantial damage and adverse effects to […]

Although landing excursions outnumber takeoff excursions by a margin of four-to-one, the FAA believes not enough attention is being paid by pilots to the dangers of the latter type of incident. Aiming to change that, the agency issued a Safety Alert for Operators (SAFO) that encourages the use of standard operating procedures to ensure accurate […]

FlightSafety International has added a new Cessna Citation Latitude level-D flight simulator to its facility in the company’s Learning Center in Columbus, Ohio. This simulator is FlightSafety’s second Latitude sim, the first having been added in the company’s facility near the Cessna Aircraft headquarters in Wichita, Kansas. In addition to the level-D simulator qualification, the […]

Recreational pilots in the northeastern part of the United States can rejoice as the Recreational Aviation Foundation (RAF), the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) and the Seaplane Pilots Association (SPA) have made strides to gain greater access to backcountry strips and waters for aviation activities. The RAF has succeeded in opening up a strip […]

SocialFlight, a Web and mobile app, has teamed up with Jeppesen, Piper, Lightspeed, Bose, CamGuard, Aspen, FreeFlight and other general aviation leaders to introduce new expert-led community forums. The moderated forums will answer questions relating to aircraft ownership, maintenance, training, technique, pilot products, travel rentals, clubs and communities. “SocialFlight’s new expert forums offer a much […]

Pilot training icons John and Martha King announced major updates to the King Schools training video series in support of the new airman certification standards (ACS), the practical test standards replacement for pilot ratings that were put in effect on June 15. The ACS puts a stronger focus on the thought process of risk management […]

The view out the windscreen from 38,000 feet wasn’t really scary, but it was fatiguing. Nexrad confirmed what we were seeing. After our fuel stop in Wichita, Kansas, we would have to pick our way around air-mass thunderstorms in the dark all the way home to California. It had been a hardworking business trip to […]

Cessna T210K Boise, Idaho/Injuries: 1 Uninjured The pilot reported that he departed on a time-sensitive cargo flight with about 30 gallons of fuel in each tank. The flight was uneventful until the airplane was about 650 feet above ground level and about 2 miles from the destination airport when the engine experienced a total loss […]

The following is an excerpt from official NTSB summaries of general aviation accidents in the United States. NTSB investigators either traveled in support of this investigation or conducted a significant amount of investigative work without any travel, and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report. Piper PA-32 Cuba, Missouri/Injuries: 1 […]

In 1752, an interesting Frenchman named Jean le Rond d’Alembert published a work on fluid mechanics in which he demonstrated that a body moving in a frictionless, incompressible fluid does not experience drag. This was a consummation devoutly to be wished — we still wish for it today — but since it was quite obvious […]