Pilot Proficiency

The fast-moving cold front bristled against the western edges of Washington’s Cascade Mountains. Rain showers and gusty winds swirled through the valleys as thick clouds enveloped the rising terrain. Darkness had long since fallen that February night as clock hands edged past 10 p.m. Air traffic controller Jared Mike plugged his headset into the workstation […]

A student pilot who survived a helicopter crash in December has filed lawsuits claiming his instructor was using FaceTime, a popular video chat application, on his cell phone during the instructional flight in a Robinson R22. The lawsuits were filed by the student, Jonathan Desouza, and his lawyer against the flight school that operated the […]

The National Transportation Safety Board released more than 800 pages from its accident investigation docket that reveal troubling clues about what may have caused last May’s crash of a Gulfstream IV in Bedford, Massachusetts, which killed seven people on board including Philadelphia Inquirer owner Lewis Katz. The most disquieting information contained in the trove of […]

The National Transportation Safety Board yesterday issued four new Safety Alerts for general aviation pilots and mechanics highlighting risks uncovered in a number of recent accident investigations. Three of the alerts are geared toward pilots. They address: mountain flying skills and survival equipment considerations; transition training before flying an unfamiliar aircraft with different flight characteristics […]

Talk about a lucky landing. A pilot parachuted to safety onto the top of a hospital parking garage in downtown Reno, Nevada, on Sunday after an apparent encounter with severe mountain wave turbulence tore both the wings off his German-built Schleicher glider. Longtime glider enthusiast Bob Spielman was reportedly attempting to return to Minden-Tahoe Airport […]

As the holder of a Private Pilot certificate, you can fly any airplane with a gross weight up to 12,500 pounds. That means you can legally jump into any airplane as long as you meet the currency requirements established by the FAA. But would it be smart to simply jump in and go? The answer […]

Loss of control accounts for more than 40 percent of fixed-wing GA fatal accidents, a sobering statistic that has prompted the National Transportation Safety Board to put this danger on its “Most Wanted” list of safety improvements. Now, a group of flight instructors in the Washington, D.C. area is tackling the problem as well through […]

David Gowan, a 57-year-old Mooney M20K pilot from North Dakota, had just reached 1,000 feet after taking off from Minnesota’s Hawley Municipal Airport on Tuesday when his engine quit. Searching for a landing spot, he spotted a clear area on Highway 10 and brought the airplane down. After touching down, however, the Mooney caught up […]

The article “Learning to Fly like a Girl” reveals human traits not necessarily gender specific. And “first, fly the airplane” may have little to do with one’s experience level. Each article has everything to do with one’s “mere presence of mind” to have the right flying attitude, all of the time! John King hit the […]

During 18 months in 2003 and 2004, SpaceShipOne, Scaled Composites’ original air-launched spaceplane, made 14 free flights of which six were powered, the rest glides. Although SS1 was a novel design with an untried type of motor and was venturing into inhospitable territory last visited by the X-15 almost 50 years earlier, the privately funded […]