Pilot Proficiency

I was in the grocery store picking up some food for Super Bowl Sunday when I got the call. The offer I made on the 1970 B58 Baron had been accepted. A quick look online showed that there was one flight leaving that afternoon for Arkansas, and in three hours I was on my way. […]

A 17-year, 26,000-hour A320 captain, who was a check airman for his airline as well as a certified airframe and power plant mechanic, called a friend to say he would fly over his house later that day to show him the Aerostar 601P he had bought. At a quarter to five the friend, a retired […]

Flying reader Ajay Jayaraj, a flight instructor at Aeronavigation Academy International in the Philippines, recently submitted this breathtaking footage of his experience of aviation in his home country. Check out just how beautiful it is to fly in this region of Southeast Asia. Want more? Head over to our “Flying Is” channel for all reader […]

Some instructors say that flying can’t be taught in the cockpit. And while we have to fly a certain number of hours in an actual aircraft in order to earn the various levels of pilot certificates, there is some validity to this argument. In the cockpit, there are many distractions from the teaching process: traffic, […]

Taiwan’s TransAsia Airways has ordered its pilots to undergo additional training on engine failure emergencies in the aftermath of the fatal crash of one of the airline’s ATR 72-600 twin turboprops. Investigators say the flight data recorders from TransAsia Flight 235 indicate that the airplane lost power in the right engine just after takeoff from […]

In the age of the tablet, it’s just the sort of inflight emergency many pilots have contemplated dealing with. A pilot and his wife reportedly used their iPad to fly about 80 miles in their darkened cockpit and land safely, without landing gear, at Rapid City Regional Airport in South Dakota after a total electrical […]

After we’ve been flying for a while as pilots, things get a lot easier. Our hands and eyes begin to go to the right places in the cockpit naturally, and the body just knows how much response the airplane will make to each control movement. We become comfortable with aviation communications. We get to know […]

At least three dashboard video cameras captured the final terrifying seconds of TransAsia Flight 235’s descent over Taipei, Taiwan, on Tuesday as the twin turboprop struggled to remain aloft before abruptly rolling left and knifing into the Keelung River. The pilot can be heard on ATC audio declaring an emergency, stating, “Mayday, Mayday, engine flameout” […]

Dramatic up-close video captured the crash of a TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 in Taipei, Taiwan, on Wednesday that killed at least 31 people and injured several others. The ATR 72-600 turboprop took off from Sungshan Airport around 11:30 a.m. local time and issued a mayday call shortly afterward, although the transmission did not include additional […]

A National Transportation Safety Board report on a Cessna 150 crash in Watkins, Colorado, last May is raising eyebrows for partially blaming the fatal accident on the pilot’s use of his cell phone to take selfies mid-flight. The 29-year-old pilot at the controls of the Cessna, who was not Instrument or night current, took off […]