Pilot Proficiency

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 […]

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 Richard Johnston, who recently flew into Carlsbad’s McClellan-Palomar Airport in a Piper Saratoga. Here’s what he had to say about one of the airport’s FBOs, Western Flight Services: […]

Though his racing suit is devoid of sponsors’ patches, Jeff Bloch has built 13 racers over the years — but none quite like this one. The shiny aluminum race “car” is actually the fuselage of a 1956 Cessna 310 light twin, mated to the chassis of a 1987 Toyota minivan. Bloch (known as “Speedycop”) and […]

With a publishing history that stretches back to 1927, some history told within the pages of Flying Magazine is bound to repeat itself. Reflecting on the October 1944 issue of Flying, which featured naval aviation at war, Edward Sarkisian retells his account of his father, Ed Sarkisian, who was onboard the USS Yorktown as it […]

Aviation enthusiasts have been opening the video link of “Lainey’s First Airplane Ride” like it was money from home. While it’s tough to match the infectious enthusiasm of a six-year-old, try this one on for size. Born a few years before Lainey — in 1950 — Livingston Taylor is an accomplished singer-songwriter and professor at […]

NTSB investigators have recovered the black box from a Beech Premier I that crashed into a South Bend, Indiana, neighborhood on Sunday, killing both pilots aboard the airplane and injuring three others. The black box data is being sent back to NTSB headquarters in Washington as investigators continue their examination of the airplane wreckage. Officials […]

It’s safe to assume that at some point during your training — maybe at several points — you bounced the landing on touchdown. We all know that corrective action for a bounce — depending on its severity — is the same for ballooning. When the bounce is minor and there’s no extreme change in the […]

The following article, Wrightophilia, is from the December 2003 print issue. The story of the achievement of powered flight by the Wright brothers, which in its bare outline is familiar to everyone, grows more interesting to me as I delve more deeply into it. Orville and Wilbur Wright, as indistinguishable at first glance as Tweedledum […]