Pilot Proficiency

The most recent general aviation safety report from AOPA’s Air Safety Institute shows an “unprecedented” decrease in non-commercial airplane accidents, dropping below 1,000 annually for the first time. It’s tempting to correlate the drop in GA fixed-wing accidents with a reduction in overall flight hours, but FAA estimates show that the safety improvement notched noteworthy […]

Plan your flights on your desktop or laptop computer, automatically sync them to ForeFlight Mobile on your tablet and then use ForeFlight Connect to sync directly with your avionics in the cockpit. That’s the vision ForeFlight’s creators have for their flight planning subscription service with new web browser capability now in beta testing. Whether they […]

As we all know, bad weather can wreak havoc on air traffic flow for all airplanes from light single-engine propeller airplanes to heavy airliners. Here is a cool video that shows the traffic flow around Atlanta during a time of severe but localized thunderstorms. The video shows the accelerated flight paths of airplanes going into […]

Thankfully midair collisions are rare, but when they do occur they’re usually fatal. As you probably know already, see-and-avoid techniques remain the foundation of avoiding midair collisions when flying VFR, but there are other precautions you as pilot in command can take to reduce your risk of tangling with other traffic inflight. A rash of […]

Accident investigators are trying to determine why a New York-area air traffic controller directed the pilot of a Beech Bonanza who died in the crash of his airplane earlier this month toward a nonexistent airport in the middle of an industrial area, possibly giving the man false hope as he desperately searched for a suitable […]

It was a tough weekend for airshows in Europe, ending with multiple fatalities of not only airshow pilots but also unsuspecting bystanders. At the Shoreham Airport in southeastern England, a Hawker Hunter, a vintage warbird jet developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, crashed in a massive fireball into the busy A27 freeway, killing […]

Five passengers and a pilot on a sightseeing flight were killed on Monday when their floatplane crashed in rugged terrain north of Quebec City. The de Havilland Beaver crashed into a mountainside near Quebec’s Lac Saint-Jean in good weather, according to crash investigators. The passengers included four British nationals and one woman from France. A […]

In my March Aftermath column on the 2012 crash of a Pilatus PC-12 in Florida, I faulted the National Transportation Safety Board for mixing up indicated and true airspeeds. Actually, it was I who misread the report. I am indebted to reader Timothy Burtch, an accident investigator with the NTSB, for pointing out that the […]

Two airplanes carrying as many as 40 parachutists collided over Slovakia today, raining down debris over a forested area as the occupants jumped for their lives. At least seven were killed in the collision while another 15 parachutists remain missing. The rest reportedly jumped from the airplanes during and after the collision. The Czech-built L-410 […]

King Schools has made some modifications to its Flight Instructor Refresher Course to allow CFIs to focus on areas of weakness or greater interest. Rather than having a list of set course components that must be completed, the course now includes elective sections. “CFIs new to the King FIRC can customize their course for what […]