Pilot Proficiency

Confidence in the ability of unmanned aircraft to integrate into U.S. airspace took another hit on Tuesday when an Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone crashed on a training flight. Attached to the 174th Attack Wing of the New York Air National Guard, the aircraft suffered failure of its datalink control, and crashed into Lake Ontario […]

The Finnish defense force has confirmed one pilot was killed in a collision of two BAE Hawk trainers yesterday over a sparsely populated area in western Finland. The collision happened just after noon in good weather at about 5,000 feet, the Finnish defense force said in a statement on its website. The pilot of one […]

Pilots for Christ International, or PCI, is a service organization dedicated in part to connecting volunteer pilots with people needing transportation for medical or other reasons. In February 2012, one of the members of the Wyoming chapter of the organization, a 47-year-old, 500-hour private pilot and owner of a 1961 Cessna 210, offered to fly […]

A husband and wife were killed along with their teenage son in the crash of a Beechcraft Bonanza in the wee hours of Monday morning. According to news reports, the family left Tradewind Airport in Amarillo, Texas, around 2:24 p.m., stopped in Lubbock and continued on to an airport near Dallas. The Bonanza stopped in […]

I bought a Cessna 340 several years ago for business and personal use. It was my first pressurized aircraft, so my insurance carrier was quick to point out that despite hundreds of hours of multiengine time, I needed not only a high-altitude endorsement but also formal schooling on the aircraft before it would cover me […]

Garmin today introduced an interactive web-based pilot training course for the G5000 integrated flight deck, with self-paced lessons that are designed to make learning to use the high-end bizjet cockpit fast and easy. The G5000 eLearning program takes users through three training modes, including initial demonstrations, guided interaction and solo manipulation. After each section, the […]

The son of U.S. Senator James Inhofe was killed over the weekend in the crash of a Mitsubishi MU-2B in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Perry Inhofe, 52, an orthopedic surgeon, crashed about five miles short of Tulsa International Airport after reportedly losing power in one engine. He had taken of from Salina, Kansas, on Sunday before experiencing […]

The only good news about controlled flight into terrain accidents is that there’s usually no suffering. When an airplane travelling in excess of 100 knots hits an immovable object, the lights, to paraphrase Tony Soprano, simply go out. The fact that for practitioners of personal flying CFIT is still a major cause of accidents should […]

The long-awaited response to training shortcomings that surfaced after** the crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407** in Buffalo, New York, in February 2009 became official with the FAA’s adoption of new training requirements for all U.S. airline pilots on Tuesday. The new rules put a greater emphasis on recovery from stalls and upsets during recurrent […]

Yves Rossy, widely known as Jetman, recently visited Asia for the first time, donning his black Carbon-kevlar wing equipped with four mini-jets. A video produced by Rossy’s sponsor Breitling provides multiple perspectives of the flight and gives a pretty good idea of what Jetman’s unique experience, likely the closest replication of flying like a bird […]