Pilot Proficiency

The pilot in the left seat of the Piper Arrow was a 33,000-hour ATP; his right-seat companion had a private ticket and less than 200 hours. The two took off from Racine, Wisconsin, on a midsummer afternoon and headed northward, just off the western shore of Lake Michigan. There were scattered clouds at 3,400 feet […]

You’ve never seen anything like this. Extremely strong winds at the USAF Academy Airfield in Colorado Springs, Colorado, caused a dangerous emergency situation for pilots of four tow planes sitting on the tarmac as a 55-knot spring gust front swept across the airport recently. Two of the four pilots were forced to take to the […]

Little more than a century after mankind made the first ever powered human flight, aviation has completely transformed the world in which we live, connecting cities across the oceans and people all over the planet within just hours time. While it might not seem so amazing as you’re standing in security lines in some of […]

A passenger was killed and the captain nearly struck by a bullet on Tuesday night as gunmen opened fire on an airliner landing at the main airport in Peshawar, Pakistan. According to news reports, a female passenger sitting next to her daughter died in the attack and two flight attendants were injured when at least […]

The more intimate your relationship is with your airplane, the better prepared you are to provide the airplane with a long, healthy life and, more importantly, you will be more acutely aware of when something is not quite right. You are much more likely to be able to accurately diagnose a problem quickly if you […]

Mira Slovak, also known as “The Poor Refugee,” passed away this week at the age of 84. While not very well known to our generation, Slovak became a legend when he won the very first National Championship Air Races’ Unlimited Category, flying an F8F Bearcat, in 1964. Slovak didn’t cross the finish line first, but […]

Need a quick pick-me-up to carry you through the rest of the work week? This video will likely do the trick. Shot by a couple of pilots flying over the Judith River in beautiful north-central Montana, the footage captures a one-of-a-kind flying experience over some of America’s most breathtaking terrain. We only wish we could […]

In 2012, USA Today reporter Thomas Frank was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He didn’t win. Maybe coming so close to claiming journalism’s top accolade and missing out ate at him. And so he set his sights on a tantalizing new subject – the miserable safety record of little airplanes – that could finally […]

When we make a turn in flight, why do we use the rudder? We all know from the books the answer is to “correct for adverse yaw” — which is just a fancy way of saying to overcome drag from the aileron. When you initiate a turn, which should you move first, the aileron with […]

A 21-year-old pilot who works for a skydiving company was forced to make a skydiving jump of his own — his first ever — to bail out of his Cessna 182 after a previous jumper damaged the aircraft in flight. Southern Illinois University student Shawn Kinmartin was flying south of St. Louis at 11,500 feet […]