Pilot Proficiency

In creating our list of the 25 Most Beautiful Airplanes ever there were a number of contenders that just missed the cut. And by just missed, I mean that some actually made it onto the original list only to be bumped off by others. If there’s an airplane you thought should have been included that […]

A pair of gliders participating in a soaring competition recently near Gransden, England, north of London collided, leading to an emergency landing by one and a bailout by the pilot of the other. According to a BBC report, a glider with two people aboard was damaged in the collision but managed to land safely in […]

This month’s Redbird Flight Simulations Jay scenario starts like this: A small brush fire threatens property in a state park in southwestern Utah and you’re the first aerial asset on the scene. The plume of smoke is easy to spot, but the fire itself is tucked between hills. The scenario puts you and your Air […]

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 […]