Pilot Proficiency

Sporty’s has released a new and completely revamped version of its E6B app for the iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone, including the iPhone 5. The new version includes the same features as the electronic E6B that is available from Sporty’s Pilot Shop. The app includes 22 aviation functions, conversions for 10 different parameters and some […]

On a Sunday morning in March a 150-hour private pilot, 61 years old, and his wife went for a short flight in a rented Cherokee Warrior. It was a nice blue-sky day. The nearest weather reporting point, 20 miles to the south, was calling the visibility 10 miles — which meant, for all practical purposes, […]

| It takes a village to make an animated film. Around 500 people contributed to the creation of Planes, Disney’s latest animated movie, slated for release on Aug. 9. I had the chance to meet with a few of the key creators to learn more about what goes into making an animated movie that, through […]

I encountered a minor problem while working on my private pilot ticket: Members of the Des Moines, Iowa, company’s flying club kept crashing their airplanes! In one case, a member got into weather he couldn’t handle in a Tri-Pacer with minimal instruments. So he put her down in a cornfield. He wasn’t hurt, but the […]

On Saturday August 24 the National Transportation Safety Board will hold a seminar on “lessons learned” from accidents involving experimental amateur-built (E-AB) aircraft. Though some 33,000 E-ABs constitute a bit less than 10 percent of the U.S. GA fleet, the category accounts for 15 percent of accidents and more than 20 percent of fatal accidents, […]

Highlighting the growing frustration aviation officials face in their quest to improve general aviation safety, accident statistics released this week remained virtually unchanged from 2011 to 2012, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. There were 1,471 GA accidents in 2012 versus 1,470 in 2011, according to the latest statistics compiled by the NTSB. Fatalities, […]

San Diego-based King Schools has launched a new app to help pilots make studying easier on the go. The new King Schools Companion app allows students access to their King Schools courses on an iPad or iPhone. Students simply need to download the Companion app from the App Store. Then they can log in using […]

A whole new airshow concept made its debut this weekend with the inaugural Gathering of Warbirds and Legends in Topeka, Kansas. Sixty-one airplanes of various types and sizes were on display and flew over Forbes Field. But none of these flights included what airshow attendees have become accustomed to: aerobatics, inverted flight or wingwalkers. “This […]

“Recognize that conversation is a powerful distracter.” As I quoted those words from the NASA study of crew error accidents in January’s article, a flood of accident case studies flowed through my head. Some I had discussed earlier in that same article — the Teterboro controller who was engaged in a discussion on the phone […]

The Society of Aviation and Flight Educators’ (SAFE) Pilot Proficiency Project, which the organization has offered at AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and Sun ‘n Fun in Lakeland, Florida, for the past few years, has become such a success that SAFE has decided to offer the training at other locations around the country. SAFE President Doug […]