Pilot Proficiency

If you have thoughts of launching a flying club, the time to act is now. The experts at Chicago-area-based Ground Effect Advisors want to help you out, and they have more than words to offer. They’ve hit up AOPA for a $1,000 scholarship, seed money to help get your club up and running — into […]

With 149 air traffic control towers scheduled to close in the near future, many as early as next week, it may be time for you to brush up on non-towered airport operations. To help in this process, PilotWorkshops has released a free non-towered operations video series that you can view online at your leisure. “While […]

Night flying presents enough of an additional challenge to us pilots that the FAA maintains certain requirements for night-specific training for the Private and Commercial Pilot Certificates and for night flying currency in order to carry passengers. In order to be safe at night, panel and cockpit lighting is important as it ensures that you […]

Almost inexplicably, neither the instructor nor the experienced owner-pilot of a Zodiac 601-XL (N999NA) was wearing his seat belt on an instructional flight in the newly-acquired aircraft. Following an unexplained “malfunction” that caused a severe pitch-down, the forward-hinged canopy flew open and the student pilot was thrown from the two-seat, side-by-side cockpit. He fell 2,500 […]

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 Jim Urban, who recently flew into Traverse City, Michigan’s Cherry Capital Airport in a Cessna 210. Here’s what he had to say about one of the airport’s FBOs, […]

In the FAA’s rush to shut down scores of the nation’s contract control towers, nobody within the agency saw it necessary to perform a thorough analysis of the potential safety ramifications. Nor did the agency conduct a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis to consider, among other things, the millions of dollars it took to build the towers […]

The creator of the world’s most efficient paper airplane, John Collins, has launched The New World Champion Paper Airplane Book, a guide that explains how to make his record-breaking design, which he named “Susanne” after his wife, and 23 other “masterpieces of precision and aerodynamics.” While “Susanne” was designed for distance by maximizing lift and […]

The night between March 30 and 31 marks the 10th anniversary of the bulldozing of Merrill C. Meigs Field Airport near downtown Chicago, ordered by the mayor at that time, Richard M. Daley. To commemorate that sad day in aviation history, Friends of Meigs Field is planning an event on the grounds where the airport […]

Emergencies are rare, but they happen quickly, and being prepared maximizes the likelihood of a good ending to the day. Of the many numbers associated with flying, the best glide speed is one of the most important. The best glide speed allows you to glide the farthest, giving you time to investigate and fix an […]

The winds of fate can blow with a gentle moderate assistance, or they can be right on the nose at 80 knots. Fate is the hunter, as Ernie Gann so eloquently put it, and the winds are frequently the weapon of choice. No matter what you fly today, winds will have a heavy effect on […]