Pilot Proficiency

We all know that we use elevator trim to reduce pressures on the yoke in flight and thereby make our airplanes easier to handle. You might reason that during an aborted landing you can leave the trim wheel alone if, say, you’re already trimmed for an approach at 70 knots and want to execute a […]

With Oshkosh behind us momentum is growing for the next major show on the aviation calendar, Flying Aviation Expo in Palm Springs, California, October 15-17. The expo at the Palm Springs Convention Center is slated to feature more than 300 brands, 75 aircraft and 50 educational seminars and tech talks. A major draw again this […]

A Piper Malibu with five aboard crashed next to the runway at Wittman Regional Airport at around 8 o’clock local time this morning, sending up a plume of black smoke and closing the airspace over Oshkosh for about three hours. Four of those on board were able to get out of the airplane on their […]

Some surprising findings are highlighted in the National Transportation Safety Board accident report detailing what went horribly wrong in the skies over Afghanistan in May 2013, when a National Airlines Boeing 747 cargo plane climbing out after takeoff suddenly rolled over and plummeted into the ground, sending up a massive fireball. The dramatic accident was […]

The preflight inspection is, as you well know, an important process where you check all the visible parts and fluids to ensure the airplane is ready to fly. There are, however, many components that we can’t inspect with our eyes. But some of these invisible components can be inspected by other means. You can simply […]

Certified flight instructors now have a new option for renewing their annual Transportation Security Administration requirement through King Schools. TSA Security Awareness Training for CFIs is a free course designed to help flight instructors with the recurrent TSA training in the year between the Flight Instructor Refresher Course (FIRC), which includes the required training. The […]

Air traffic controller Ray Smid watched the yellow blips slide across his radar screen. The circles moved in silence, but Smid never forgot that they embodied real aircraft. It didn’t matter if the traffic was big or small. Lives were lost if the blips merged. The eraser-shaped images toted “data blocks” displaying flight number, destination, […]

It’s every passenger’s worst nightmare. The flight is going smoothly and then, out of nowhere, the pilot convulses and passes out at the controls. Suddenly, the front-seat passenger is faced with the most daunting challenge he or she may likely ever face: to control the airplane and land it safely in more or less one […]

Tuesday’s deadly midair collision of an F-16 and Cessna 150 in South Carolina was the first in the United States between a military and civilian airplane in a decade, highlighting how rare such tragedies are while also pointing to the need to remain especially vigilant when airplanes of vastly different performance capabilities mix in the […]

An Air Force F-16 fighter jet and a Cessna 150 collided over South Carolina this morning, scattering debris from the airplanes over a wide area. The collision occurred about 11 miles north of Charleston near the uncontrolled Moncks Corner Airport in the vicinity of a number of military jet routes. The F-16 pilot safely ejected. […]