Pilot Proficiency

Rich Gibson’s airshow work is impossible to ignore. His company, Rich’s Incredible Pyro, is responsible for the gigantic walls of flame that accompany simulated aerial attacks during EAA AirVenture and other airshows around the world. This year will be Rich’s swan song at Oshkosh, but he has left indelible memories for anyone who’s seen his […]

EAA Chairman and de facto president Jack Pelton addressed reporters at a regularly scheduled press conference and discussed a variety of topics. Included was the FAA’s charging for services for air traffic controllers, which EAA is fighting in court and on Capitol Hill. Pelton explained that for the week of AirVenture, the FAA essentially owns […]

A scary incident at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh yesterday highlights the need for quick thinking when the unexpected happens. First, here’s the story: The pilot of a Van’s RV set up for a nicely stabilized approach to Runway 9 and made a decent landing – the only problem was that the wind was out of the […]

Video footage and other evidence shows that the Southwest 737 whose nose gear collapsed upon touchdown at LaGuardia Airport last week landed nose gear first, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The Board reported that at four seconds before landing the 737-700 was pitched up about two degrees, whereas at touchdown the airplane was […]

At a news conference at AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Jeppesen introduced several new aviation programs for the iPad. Responding to the popularity of Garmin’s G1000 integrated glass-panel avionics, which is now the standard package for most new training airplanes, Jeppesen has introduced a G1000 avionics training app. The G1000 avionics training covers VFR and IFR […]

Two men headed for EAA AirVenture in a Piper Cherokee died on Saturday afternoon when they crashed into Lake Michigan shortly after departing from Batten Airport in Racine, Wisconsin. Coast Guard rescue crews located the airplane submerged in the water a few miles off the coast near Milwaukee at around 5:30 p.m., an hour and […]

| The five members of the National Transportation Safety Board seated at the semicircular dais are demanding answers. Inside the theater-style auditorium at 429 L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C., they grill safety experts and industry leaders for four long days. Their mission: to understand why the previous year was the deadliest ever for emergency medical […]

We’ve seen Super Cubs land in some pretty interesting places, but none quite as tight as this. Instead of a runway, the pilot chooses to set down on a logging road somewhere in the wilds of Maine. That would be challenging enough, but this particular road is flanked by some fairly tall trees not to […]

A Sukhoi Superjet 100 landed on its belly at Keflavik International Airport in Iceland over the weekend during a test evaluation of the airplane’s fully automated landing gear. The incident occurred while the jet was performing a landing with a simulated engine failure amid strong crosswinds. None of the five individuals aboard the Superjet were […]

The Westman Islands, locally known as Vestmannaeyjar, are a group of islands off the southern coast of Iceland. Like their better known neighboring island, the Westman Islands are distinguished by rugged terrain that makes flying there particularly challenging. See for yourself how a pilot of former Islandsflug closely skirts the rough mountainsides and ridges to […]