Pilot Proficiency

There has been considerable consternation in the aviation media recently about the lack of progress in improving the general aviation accident rate. National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman recently expressed her frustration that the general aviation accident rate in the United States has essentially plateaued at around 1,500 accidents every year, emphasizing that the […]

At the Monaco yacht expo last week, one of the attention grabbers was Graham Hawkes’s DeepFlight Super Falcon two-man submarine. What makes the craft interesting for pilots is the control method. The Super Falcon is buoyant, and relies on forward motion and negative “lift” from its 8.8-foot wingspan to keep it from rising to the […]

Southwest Airlines said it has fired the captain who landed a Boeing 737-700 nose wheel first at New York LaGuardia Airport in July. The airline determined that the captain, who had flown for Southwest for 13 years, took control of the airplane from the first officer at about 400 feet on the approach in violation […]

Pilots who’ve made the trip to the Redbird Skyport in San Marcos, Texas, for the $1 a gallon gasoline are raving about their experiences. Despite sky high demand since the promotion started on October 1, lines have moved quickly and the FBO has handled the influx of pilots beautifully, we are being told. As the […]

The fiery crash of a Cessna Citation CJ2 into a hangar at Santa Monica on Sunday evening left four dead and raised many questions about just what happened and why. Killed in the crash were a Santa Monica businessman, Mark Benjamin, his adult son Luke, and two women also on the flight, whose names have […]

While paved areas at airports are generally flat, there are times when runways, taxiways and parking areas are sloped. While sloped runways and taxiways in some cases require extra attention, sloped parking areas can cause major problems. I recently visited a beautiful airport in the southern part of the Sierra Nevada Mountains called Kern Valley […]

More than six decades after Navy test pilot George Thackray Weems perished in an airplane crash at the age of 30, the story of his journey across the world with his father, famous navigator P.V.H. Weems, is finally being told in George’s own words. In Box Kite to Bali: The Last Great Adventure of a […]

When New England Patriots star defensive lineman Vince Wilfork left the field on Sunday with a torn Achilles tendon, some NFL fans wondered if seven-time Pro Bowler Richard Seymour might be available to replace him. The 33-year-old ex-Patriot is currently a free agent. His departure from the team with which he won three Super Bowls […]

The homebuilding world lost one of its icons last week with the death of Carl Unger, the co-inventor of the Breezy open-cockpit kitplane. He was 82. Unger designed and constructed the Breezy prototype in 1964 with fellow corporate pilots and homebuilding enthusiasts Charley Roloff and Bob Liposky. The trio flew the unique three-seater to the […]

If the George Zimmerman trial wasn’t enough to feed a media frenzy, a major airplane crash at one of the country’s busiest airports filled the remaining void. When I was contacted by a national TV network to validate a specific nuance of the 777 automation system, I actually considered that maybe this time the media […]