Pilot Proficiency

Cirrus Aircraft is donating an SR22 for AirSpace Minnesota’s planned Aviation Learning Center to give young students the chance to experience the wonder of aviation firsthand. AirSpace Minnesota is joining with the Museum of Flight in Seattle to create the Aviation Learning Center in the Twin Cities area. When completed, the center will feature hands-on […]

It can be tough to get a flying club off the ground, and that’s why a group known as Ground Effect Advisors is addressing the problem. Today, GEA announced that Zachary Piech of Wilmington, North Carolina has won $3,500 in donated products and services to help launch his flying club, Cape Fear Flyers. GEA will […]

Russian daredevil Valery Rozov recently broke the record for the highest BASE (Buildings, Antennas, Spans or Earth) jump as he stepped off a steep cliff at an elevation of 23,688 feet on the north face of Mount Everest. Due to the thin air, Rozov spent more than the usual time freefalling before gaining control of […]

Details of the 50th edition of the National Championship Air Races, planned for September 11 to 15 at the Reno-Stead Airport outside Reno, Nevada, were released this week. “We are planning for our biggest event yet and are excited to highlight and commemorate 50 years of Air Racing and the sport of aviation as a […]

It is one of the great challenges facing those of us dedicated to reducing the accident rate in aviation: How do we help pilots maintain an awareness of the potential negative consequences of taking chances in aviation? One approach is to publish articles about accidents, exhorting pilots not to make the same mistakes. However, there […]

As the busy summer flying season kicks off, the FAA is taking a slightly different approach to safety by asking pilots, well, to fly safely. In an open letter to the general aviation community sent just before the Memorial Day weekend, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta implored aviators to “make sure you’re ready – really ready […]

It was a sad day for volunteers of Angel Flight Northeast after a Piper Seneca on a mission for the group crashed in Upstate New York on Friday, killing a cancer patient, his wife and the pilot. The airplane had taken off from Hanscom Field near Bedford, Massachusetts, with the brain cancer patient — whose […]

When you’re learning to fly, the cockpit experience can be overwhelming. Precision maneuvers for the Private, Instrument, Commercial and ATP certificates require certain parameters that can, at times, be difficult to achieve. For the Private Pilot applicant there are many new components to learn in the cockpit: instruments, radio communications, airspace and weather, not to […]

Air Force Test Center Flight Safety deputy chief Bill Koukourikos and Public Affairs specialist Laura Mowry approach their T-38.| There is always an edge, a place where what we know, the very best of our machine and our skill do not match what might happen, a place where “a wing and a prayer” holds operational […]

At the end of February, the National Transportation Safety Board released the findings of its investigation of the crash of a Bell 206 JetRanger into New York’s East River in October 2011. The helicopter, with five aboard, had just taken off from the riverside East 34th Street Heliport when it began to yaw out of […]