Pilot Proficiency

As summer approaches and temperatures begin to rise, it’s important to take steps to keep cool. Excessive heat can be incapacitating, and the effects might not hit you until you have already taken off. A Ryan Air pilot found this out the hard way as he passed out partway into a flight from Pisa, Italy, […]

It is often pointed out that although people commonly imagine aircraft accidents as arising from a single big cause — engine failure, thunderstorm — they very often follow a series of small ones. Any small thing slightly out of order may, under sufficiently unlucky circumstances, become the cause of an accident. It is the inherently […]

One of the biggest problems with home PC-based flight simulators is replicating the real-world panel the pilot flies. Real-world airplane panels have a wide range of available equipment, and almost never match up with the simulator program’s configuration. A lot of training time goes to waste learning the panel that’s on the computer screen, or […]

The Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has added six new undergraduate and graduate degree programs, offering educational opportunities related to recent developments in the field. Most of these programs will begin this fall at various ERAU locations. As the commercial space travel industry is being cultivated, ERAU claims to be the first school in the world to […]

At Sun ‘n Fun AOPA and Redbird, along with numerous partners including Flying, launched a new kind of simulator. The AOPA Jay by Redbird is an all-in-one solution for pilots and other flying enthusiasts who want to get up and flying using a desktop sim without having to engineer a system themselves. The Jay, which […]

Once again the White House’s annual budget proposal calls for a $100 per-flight user fee on certain general aviation aircraft. While talk of user fees used to send chills through the industry, this time around the reaction has been one of confident resolve rather than fear. Here’s what’s changed. In the last few years the […]

Make sure you bring your sunscreen, sunglasses and a hat if you’re heading out to the Sun ‘n Fun Fly-In in Lakeland, Florida, which opened its doors this morning under partly cloudy skies. The forecast calls for mostly clear weather and warm temperatures for the nearly weeklong event at the Lakeland Linder Airport. But despite […]

Even if you only fly VFR in good weather, it pays to check for the location of instrument approaches along your route of flight. Just as you always ensure that your course doesn’t take you dangerously close to terrain or obstacles, you also want to avoid flying through the inbound course of an approach that […]

I gazed at the pile of Jepp binders that were scattered across my desk: United States, Europe, Latin America, Pacific, Far East, 777 ops manual, company manual. I sighed with a wary smile. Was it possible that I would never again have to clack open metal rings and replace pages upon pages of approach plates […]

In our FBO Spotlight series, we’re highlighting FBOs around the country that have received rave reviews from our readers. This latest Spotlight is brought to you by Mike “Gunner” Thompson, who recently flew into Page Field Airport in Fort Myers, Florida, in a Piper Archer II. Here’s what he had to say about one of […]