Pilot Proficiency

A group of RV pilots have set an unofficial world record for formation flight after a group of 49 Van’s airplanes overflew Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday before the start of Chiefs-Raiders game. KC Flight, Kansas City’s largest home-grown civilian formation team, organized the world record attempt, which must still be verified before the […]

An announcement on Lao Airlines’ Facebook page yesterday offered condolences to the “family, friends, colleagues and relatives” of the people aboard Flight QV301, an ATR 72 twin turboprop designed for up to 74 passengers that crashed on Wednesday on its way from Vientiane to Pakse, Laos. The airplane was expected to land just before 6 […]

Even though Redbird decided to cut short its $1 avgas promotion, the company will follow through on a promise by reinstating the offer for a special event. The Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE) is holding its Pilot Proficiency Project event the weekend of October 26-27 in San Marcos, Texas, and Redbird will revive […]

The world watched a year ago on October 14, as skydiver Felix Baumgartner stepped from a balloon gondola suspended 24 miles above New Mexico. Red Bull, which sponsored the “Stratos” project, has just released a unique YouTube video (shown below), including footage from three point-of-view cameras and on-screen readouts showing the skydiver’s speed and altitude […]

You may recall a story from last year where a 16-year-old student pilot soloed three different types of aircraft on his birthday. Yesterday, for his 17th birthday, Drew Gryder decided to up the ante. Gryder managed to complete the checkrides for his single- and multi-engine private ratings and second-in-command type ratings for the Douglas DC-3 […]

As the FAI World Aerobatics Championship began this weekend at the North Texas Regional Airport/Perrin Field near Sherman, Texas, the aerobatic community tragically lost one of its own. Former FAI Advanced World Champion Glen Dell died in an accident at an airshow in Secunda, South Africa. Video footage shows Dell’s Red Bull Extra 300 in […]

As fall and winter starts to set in and the days grow shorter, it is important to make sure that your night flying skills are up to snuff. Flying can take a lot more time than you may initially plan for. With less daylight to play with you are more likely to find yourself left […]

I had just finished packing my suitcase and refueling my rental car, ready to depart L’Agulhas, a sleepy fishing village built on the soft green hills and limestone rocks of Africa’s southernmost point. My last two days in South Africa were spent soaking up the sunlit serenity of this surfside enclave where the Atlantic and […]

Climbing over large boulders blocking the mouth of a narrow, sandy canyon near Joshua Tree, California, I stopped to catch my breath. Somewhere on the steep, rock-strewn hills just ahead, the remains of a TA-4F Skyhawk lay undisturbed. At 3:07 p.m. on Oct. 23, 1969, the ill-fated jet on a training flight originating in Yuma, […]

Engines, aircraft, and the rules and certification standards and procedures that govern them have evolved together since the 1930s on the seemingly firm foundation of leaded avgas, which forms part of the operating limitations on which the type certificates of aircraft and engines are based. Fuels and fuel systems have come to be perfectly matched […]