Pilot Proficiency

Garmin is making flight planning a whole lot easier with a new family of wireless gateway products that permit users to send their flight planned route from an iPad or Android tablet straight into the panel-mounted avionics in the cockpit. Part of the Garmin Connext product line, the Flight Stream 210 wireless gateway uses Bluetooth […]

It was a simple itinerary: Tampa, Florida, to Washington, D.C.’s Reagan Airport on a Saturday afternoon, join some medical colleagues for dinner, participate in a panel at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology on Sunday morning and catch the 11:40 flight back to Tampa. US Airways kept pushing the departure time to […]

Red Bull announced it is moving the location of the final air race of the 2014 season from China to Spielberg, Austria, after facing doubts about the feasibility of hosting the finale in the original location. The last race of the year will now be held at the F1 racetrack in Spielberg, bringing the race […]

We’ve all heard of deer and even an occasional moose crossing the path of a landing airplane, but it’s not often a whale gets in the way. That’s exactly what happened recently in Angoo, Alaska, when the quick reaction of a floatplane pilot avoided what could have been a calamitous outcome for airplane and the […]

Here’s a time-saving trick for IFR pilots who want to depart their home airport VFR and then have the option of easily picking up an IFR routing midflight. To do it, simply fill out an IFR flight plan form as you normally would, but input a VFR cruising altitude (for example, 8,500 feet) in the […]

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to land on an aircraft carrier? While there is nothing like a real-life experience, this 20-minute video will have you on your toes as it does a terrific job of highlighting the dangers and excitement of landing on a pitching carrier deck. The video provides an intimate glimpse […]

Divers looking for shipwrecks in Lake Ontario came across a historic find when they stumbled upon a C-45 that crashed into the lake more than six decades ago. The C-45, the military version of the Beech Model 18, remained relatively intact after plunging into the lake on Sept. 11, 1952. The airplane was abandoned midflight […]

FlightSafety International has added a level-D Pilatus PC-12/47 simulator to its Dallas Learning Center, making it the only such simulator in the world qualified to the highest approval standard. The simulator is equipped with legacy avionics including a Garmin GMX 200 multifunction display and a pair of Garmin GNS 530W GPS units. It also features […]

It was late January 1962 and my sister Mary and I had been taking flying lessons for about a month, but I don’t think either of us had soloed yet. The Ercoupe — loaned to us by an incredibly generous friend — had sat forlornly in the weeds for some time, so there were issues: […]

To the traveling public, I suspect that airline pilots are all essentially one and the same. We roam the terminals in the same weathered polyester uniforms, towing the same beat-up flight kits festooned with the airplane stickers of our pasts. We’re all pretty clean-shaven and tend to sport the same close-cropped haircut — only some […]