Pilot Proficiency

It’s a basic fact of aviation: Airplanes love to be flown. When they sit, bad things happen. Engines corrode, critters set up residence and basic maintenance gets neglected until the airplane finally flies, at which point expensive stuff breaks. Hourly costs skyrocket, and the crestfallen owner flies even less. When I bought my 1953 Piper […]

(function(d, s, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) return; var js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = ‘//cdn4.wibbitz.com/static.js’; d.getElementsByTagName(‘body’)[0].appendChild(js); }(document, ‘script’, ‘wibbitz-static-embed’)); Cirrus Aircraft has taken a drastically new apporoach to transition training. The results speak for themselves. Today Cirrus’ fatal accident rate, less than one fatal accident per 100,000 flight hours, is just half the […]

Specialized flight training has long been part of the typical transition process for pilots moving up to ever-faster and more capable airplanes. A rash of fatal SR22 crashes in 2012, however, forced Cirrus Aircraft to go back to the drawing board and completely rethink its approach to training. Nothing was out of bounds, from the […]

The following is an edited transcript of communications between 
Colorado Springs Approach Control and Tower and the pilot of a Mooney M20E arriving on an IFR flight plan from Rapid City, South Dakota. 869: Springs Approach, Mooney 79869, checking in 10,000 with Sierra. APP: 
 Mooney 79869, Springs Approach, 
expect an ILS Runway 17L. 869: […]

With education costs and career uncertainties being the two major concerns of many aspiring professional pilots, a new partnership between regional airlines, flight schools and university aviation programs addresses both issues in tandem, providing tuition assistance that comes with a guaranteed first officer job. “We’ve never had anything like this program in the industry,” says […]

It was the slightest of rumbles. Both John and I felt it. John, who was at the controls, eased the yoke forward slightly and the rumble stopped. We landed and taxied to the ramp. We had an airplane full of pilots, but no one else had felt the rumble. It was the aerodynamic warning of […]

It’s a crisp December morning in Las Vegas, and hundreds of the world’s top aerobatic pilots gather. None of them are flying, despite clear weather. Instead they pack the Rio Hotel and Casino’s Brasilia ballroom to listen to a motivational speaker. “Live lives of adventure and purpose,” the speaker encourages them. “Stretch yourself beyond your […]

It was late August and I was in Goose Bay in Labrador, Canada. For two days, my time there had been spent either at the local weather station or in my hotel room, parked in front of the Weather Channel. I had departed Bangor, Maine, two days before. My mission was to deliver a pretty […]

Cash prizes have been big motivators in aviation. The first flights across the Atlantic, the first man-powered flight, the first flight into space by a nongovernmental program — to name a few — were brought about, or at the very least hurried along, by the lure of a big payday. Not to say that honor […]

Is it possible to love two professions beyond reasonableness and be unable to distinguish which one delights you more? This romantic dilemma can occur with humans, but among professions? A recent “recurrent” gave new instruction about such a love triangle. I thought I had enjoyed a 40-plus-year career in surgery about as much as anybody […]