Pilot Proficiency

I had to land within 200 feet of the white mark to pass the last phase of the checkride. Easy, I thought, as I turned the Schweizer 2-33 sailplane onto final. I’ll show this guy how good I am. I’ve got to hold 45 knots, 300 feet — that’s a little fast; let’s apply more […]

We all know that having the incorrect altimeter setting can have a devastating outcome if you are shooting an instrument approach. A small deviation in the Kollsman window can make a difference of a few hundred feet, which can mean the difference between life and death in some situations. In addition to the pressure we […]

Today’s flight instructors are coming to terms with a new presence in the cockpit of their training aircraft: the Apple iPad. Students are bringing iPads with them to run one of a few apps that give them unprecedented situational awareness, a level of situational awareness, in fact, that makes old-school aviators wonder how in the […]

A French air force jet crashed into a home for the disabled in central France on Wednesday, killing one woman inside and injuring several others. French media reports said the Alpha Jet trainer crashed in the town of Vouvray at about 5:30 p.m. local time. The two crew members ejected and were unhurt, the air […]

The National Transportation Safety Board says preliminary flight data recorder information downloaded from the Embraer Phenom 100 that crashed into houses while on approach to Montgomery County Airpark in Maryland on Monday shows that the stall warning system sounded continuously for the last 20 seconds of the flight, indicating that the twinjet had slowed dangerously […]

Over the past year there has been plenty of aviation news for us to report on, much of it ranging from horrifying to concerning. From the tragic, baffling and as yet unsolved disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 to an FAA challenged by a changing landscape, the need for regulatory reform and challenges with ambitious programs […]

A mother and her two young children were killed on Monday when an Embraer Phenom 100 crashed into their house about a mile short of Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg, Maryland, just before 11 a.m. local time. Three people on board the jet were also killed, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, including the […]

A recent report in the journal Human Factors found that the prevalence of automated cockpits may be hindering pilots’ ability to perform some key tasks, such as navigating without the aid of a moving map and troubleshooting systems problems. Researchers studied 16 experienced pilots as they flew routine and nonroutine flight scenarios in a Boeing […]

The FAA yesterday issued long-awaited rules that increase the number of hours pilots may log toward an instrument rating using approved aviation training devices, raising the limit to 20 hours in advanced training devices versus 10 hours under the old rules. In reality many simulator makers had received special authorizations from the FAA to allow […]

A Robinson R44 apparently broke apart in flight and crashed into a the roof of a building in North Salt Lake, Utah, on Tuesday, bursting into flames and killing the two men on board. Witnesses reported seeing the helicopter break into several pieces midflight. Debris was found over a widely scattered area, according to local […]