Pilot Proficiency

“Centerline!” called Martha. She was using our standard call-out for advising the pilot at the controls that he is wandering off the taxiway centerline. We were at Dallas Love Field. There were piles of snow all around the place, and the taxiways had patchy ice. It was a good time to stay on centerline. The […]

The King Air had been airborne for just 30 minutes, en route from Pine Bluff to Bentonville in Arkansas, when it began its descent from 16,500 feet. The weather was clear, and the 3,400-hour private pilot, 72, was on VFR flight following with Razorback Approach at Fort Smith. Nine minutes after leaving 16.5, he told […]

Have you ever dreamt of doing some real adventure flying, going into remote, special spots that are best accessed by airplane? Now you can follow avid adventure pilot Ramona Cox, known in the aviation community as SkyChick, in a new series of live broadcasts that will launch on Friday. The live broadcasts are free and […]

Garmin is expanding its online course curriculum with a course designed to help pilots interpret onboard weather radar data. Weather radar is a terrific tool for pilots to avoid adverse conditions in the sky and help them make better weather-related decisions. Garmin’s Weather Radar Operations eLearning Course teaches pilots basic and intermediate weather radar operations, […]

So far it’s unconfirmed, but the FAA is taking seriously a report that a Piper twin was involved in a midair collision with a UAV over northern Illinois on August 27. Maybe we should be calling it a UFO, since the FAA’s incident report refers to a collision between the Piper Apache and an “unidentified […]

Last week brought record heat to the west coast, with temperatures reaching beyond 100 degrees in my neck of the woods. It was a perfect time to fly to Phoenix for a story — not. But alas, a trip to the city in the desert was on my schedule. It was a good opportunity to […]

Over the last few days I’ve been getting a lot of advice from a lot of people who I would say are a lot smarter than me and who have a lot more experience, in aviation and in life. It’s gratifying to know there are accomplished folks who are willing to take the time to […]

A tragic accident happened on Friday as aerobatic pilot Andrew Wright was preparing for a performance at the New York Air Show at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, New York. Based on footage taken from a photographer on the ground, it appears that the entire tail section of Wright’s Giles G-202 airplane was torn off […]

As I shuffled charts and pages of the latest Jeppesen revision into various binders and folders, my copilot introduced herself. Lisa had recently returned from medical leave and was glad to be back at work. Upon reflection, perhaps the medical leave aspect was a foreshadowing of what was about to come. Our flight planning review […]

The service was at a Presbyterian church in a small town east of Cincinnati — about a 30-minute flight in the Cessna 180. I had planned to fly there and commandeer the airport’s retired police car, but my airplane wouldn’t start. When I jumped in and “cranked,” it wouldn’t fire — odd, because it was […]