Pilot Proficiency

The Red Bull Flying Bulls aerobatic team was performing at the Aero India airshow in Bengaluru on Thursday when two of the airplanes collided midair, sending both into emergency descents that ended with successful landings. Both pilots escaped the accident uninjured, but one aircraft suffered significant wing damage. Local reports say the collision between the […]

I’ve been to a handful of parties in my life, and for the most part, they’ve all been rather staid affairs. Which is quiet ironic. You see, at most of these dos, I often run into people who tend to have the ideal solution for fixing the weakening Euro, rising inflation, ISIS, India’s meek bowling […]

Chances are you’re fairly comfortable with landing in a crosswind — up to a point. When the wind is howling, you might feel you lack the skill (or rudder authority) to track a straight line along the centerline with one wing held low into the breeze. What should you do? Head for another airport with […]

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 […]