Pilot Proficiency

When I was a teenager learning to fly I spent a fair amount of time working as a line boy at Teterboro Airport. I don’t think I ever deserved a tip, but I appreciated every time somebody thought enough of the job I did to hand me a few crisp dollar bills. You may have […]

Recipe for disaster: Start with two brothers old enough to know better — one a low time pilot (210 pounds), the other a student pilot (170 pounds) — squeeze them into a Cessna 150, add 3,600 feet of elevation, blend in a lot of darkness, gradually add a crosswind, and then mix with overcast sky. […]

The 600-hour, instrument-rated pilot of a Piper Arrow left Georgia early on a Sunday afternoon for Delaware, where he was scheduled to perform a surgery the following day. The forecast weather at the destination and nearby airports was near minimums; the pilot filed Baltimore/Washington International (BWI) as his alternate. As he approached his filed destination […]

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which originally appeared as a section in Flying Magazine as an early attempt to organize pilots for better representation, today celebrates its 75th anniversary. Led today by president and CEO Mark Baker, the organization boasts hundreds of thousands members and advocates for them, fighting for the same kinds of […]

At first glance the video looks like a fairly routine flight over the Danube passing through the heart of Budapest, Hungary — until the camera pans out and you suddenly realize the pilots are threading the needle at low altitude in an airliner. The flight in an Airbus A320, arranged by low-cost carrier Wizz Air […]

Whiskey 7, a Douglas C-47 that flew as a lead ship dropping paratroopers during the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944, embarked today on another important mission, taking off from a grass strip in central New York to travel back in time to France for the 70th anniversary of the D-Day storming of the beaches […]

The aviation industry is mourning the passing of Jim Christiansen, the well-known former president of NetJets and past chairman of the National Air Transport Association. He was 67. Most recently Christiansen was serving as vice president of business development at FlightSafety International. His start in aviation began as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot serving a […]

Many lives and limbs have been lost as a result of spinning propellers, either by someone walking into their revolving paths or by someone inadvertently starting an engine by moving a propeller. I recently spoke with a gentleman who was fortunate to walk away from an incident in which his airplane started up briefly as […]

There are many pilots who take a hiatus from flying for years, focusing their time and disposable income on their families and other activities rather than their flying hobbies. Others may stop flying after losing their aviation jobs and getting into new careers. Many of those who stop flying unfortunately never have an opportunity to […]

Last week, after enjoying one flyable day in between snowstorms, I gave up on aviating and took myself to the movies. The flick had great reviews and an impressive cast, but it was as gloomy as the weather. I sat for a couple hours and watched a totally dysfunctional family implode — the mother dying […]