Pilot Proficiency

Flying Aviation Expo wrapped up on Saturday with the Parade of Planes back to the Palm Springs Airport, leaving everybody who was there smiling and wanting more, more, more. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say the second annual Aviation Expo was twice as good as the first. The convention hall featured more exhibits, […]

It drives me a little crazy that the Code of Federal Aviation Regulations is so vague on so many crucially important points. For example, the regs say private pilots can share certain flight costs with passengers. The rule seems pretty straightforward. It’s not until you come across up various “legal interpretations” by FAA lawyers that […]

Back in July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 went down over Ukraine killing all 298 people on board the Boeing 777. On Tuesday the Dutch Safety Board released their final conclusions in the investigations citing that the crash was caused by “detonation of a 9N314M-type warhead launched from the eastern part of Ukraine using […]

A Piper Cherokee struck a mobile home in Lake Worth, Florida, on Tuesday evening, killing the pilot and a young woman sleeping inside the trailer. Footage from nearby surveillance shows the plane in a steep bank, its wings almost vertical, before it dives into the mobile home. Flames engulfed the plane and the trailer, where […]

An airplane whose CG is significantly far behind the aft limit becomes neutrally stable or even mildly unstable. It can still be flown by a sufficiently alert pilot, but to a pilot who is unprepared for it, the experience is disorienting and can easily lead to overcontrol. Overcontrol in the nose-up direction, in turn, can […]

As a longtime reader of aviation accident stories in I Learned About Flying from That, I never thought that so soon into my aviation adventure I’d find myself telling a story of my own. All of the events that follow took place during an aviation-packed day that would begin with the eager anticipation of visiting […]

While we hear of gear up landings from time to time, a gear up takeoff is definitely an unusual incident. But here is a video that serves as proof that it does happen, too. A Mooney M20C departing from Raglan, New Zealand, dropped on its nose just as it was about to lift off a […]

Are you in the category of pilots who park the airplane, lock it up and leave as soon as you land from a flight? You may want to take some time to hang out with your aerial chariot for a while after it gets you safely on the ground. Opening up the inspection door in […]

The entire Flying team is getting ready to head for sunny Palm Springs to oversee final preparations for Flying Aviation Expo at the Palm Springs Convention Center, which kicks off on Thursday, October 15, with the Parade of Planes through the streets of downtown. Based on pre-registration numbers, it’s going to be a great show, […]

Discovering the wonders of flight can be some of the most memorable experiences, and young Léa Langumier can’t seem to get enough of it. You might remember when we featured a viral video of the four-year-old’s first aerobatic flight with her pilot father, Raphael Langumier, earlier this year. Well, not long after, Léa was already […]