Pilot Proficiency

Some pilots aren’t totally sure of the differences between a spin and a spiral dive. That’s OK in the classroom setting when discussing aerodynamic theory, but it can be dangerous in the cockpit should either flight condition be allowed to develop and the pilot doesn’t immediately know what’s going on or the corrective actions to […]

The National Transportation Safety Board released aviation accident statistics for 2014 showing a slight increase in fatal general aviation accidents, which rose from 222 in 2013 to 253 in 2014. The overall number of GA accidents dropped slightly from 1,224 in 2013 to 1,221 in 2014, but the accident rate increased from 6.26 per 100,000 […]

A traffic conflict with a microlight is being considered as a factor in an unstable approach flown by the pilot of an Embraer Phenom 300 that overran the runway at Blackbushe Airport outside London last week, crashing in a fireball and killing the 11,000-hour pilot and three members of Osama Bin Laden’s family. UK accident […]

Just Aircraft, maker of the SuperSTOL bush plane that crashed last week in South Carolina with company co-founder Troy Woodland at the controls, issued a statement blaming the mishap on water contamination in the fuel. The company also heaped praise on the airplane’s steel tube cage for allowing Woodland and a passenger to escape the […]

The National Transportation Safety Board released its final report from the investigation of Harrison Ford’s plane crash on a golf course just west of Santa Monica Airport in southern California on March 5. Ford was climbing out from Runway 21 in his open cockpit Ryan ST-3KR, also known as a PT-22 Recruit, when he reported […]

The passengers of a Delta Air Lines Airbus A320 got the fright of their lives on Friday on their way from Boston to Salt Lake City when the pilots of the airliner flew into a storm with extreme hail but subsequently managed to make an improvised emergency landing in Denver. The airplane suffered major structural […]

Grumble, grumble. It was a bad morning around the breakfast table at the Hilton near Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. There were three crews altogether. Two of us pilots were billeted at the nearby Holiday Inn, definitely not to be confused with a ­Ritz-Carlton, and we’d driven over to join the others. It was a […]

It was a little after noon on a cloudy December day when a B36TC Bonanza with five aboard climbed out of Baker City, in northeastern Oregon, bound for Butte, Montana, 234 nm away. A few minutes after takeoff the pilot called Salt Lake Center to activate his IFR flight plan. He was cleared direct to […]

Relationships are often defined by shared experiences. So was the case with Loretta and me. When the tower asked if we wanted to declare an emergency, my date’s panicked expression suggested that our future together might require more than a safe landing. The Cessna 182 ferry mission was to be routine. N15AP had just been […]

Just Aircraft cofounder Troy Woodland and a passenger were unhurt in a serious crash of Woodland’s SuperSTOL demonstrator after an apparent engine failure over hilly terrain near the company’s factory in Walhalla, South Carolina. Woodland attempted to land the airplane on a newly built residential street where homes have yet to be constructed, but the […]