Pilot Proficiency

Recently, I was reminded about that “thing” about flying when Bonnier Corp.’s Flying magazine and Jack Brown’s Seaplane Base in Winter Haven, Florida, hosted 12 folks visiting from the Bonnier parent company’s headquarters in Sweden as part of a Live the Brand event. Flying offered up two choices: discovery flights in Cessnas or discovery flights […]

Warn the neighbors and anybody else who will listen: The FAA and FBI are cracking down on people who intentionally point laser lights at aircraft in flight, launching dozens of investigations and charging nearly 30 alleged perpetrators since stepping up enforcement last summer. A new law enacted in February makes doing so a federal crime […]

One of the best lessons I ever received from my flight instructor was a lesson of disorientation. It was fairly early in my flight training. We took off from Santa Monica airport one late afternoon in the early summer. The weather was perfectly clear with light winds, but there was a thick marine layer slightly […]

A Polish oil worker surveying a remote area in Western Egypt recently stumbled upon a surprising find: The remains of a Kittyhawk P-40 that crash-landed in the Sahara Desert seven decades ago. Time and the elements have taken their toll on the aircraft, but aside from some corrosion, as well as damage likely sustained during […]

Dennis “Denny” Fitch, a United pilot and training check airman who was credited with helping save the lives of 184 people as United Flight 232 crashed in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989, has died at the age of 69. Fitch was a passenger on the ill-fated United flight, scheduled to fly from Denver to Chicago. […]

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 Woods, who recently flew into Denton Municipal Airport in a C55 Baron. Here’s what he has to say about one of the airport’s FBOs, US Aviation. US […]

History buffs and Boeing enthusiasts alike can now retrace more than 95 years of Boeing history through the company’s first ever iPad app, released on Monday. The app takes users back to the company’s roots, which took hold in 1916 with the construction of the first B & W, a two-seat seaplane used for airmail […]

The accident statistics prove it: The base-to-final turn continues to be one of the big killers in general aviation. Most often, troubles arise when a pilot realizes too late that he is overshooting the runway and so tightens the turn while simultaneously hauling back on the yoke. That’s a recipe for a rarely survivable stall-spin […]

As I have reported before, the City of Santa Monica is going through a three-step airport community process, also called the visioning process, to help determine what the future holds for the Santa Monica Airport (SMO). Phase II of the process, in which community members were given an opportunity to put in their vision for […]

I was up at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, the other week listening to the curator of the place, a very interesting gentleman named Stewart Bailey, talking with wonder about his boss, the octogenarian owner and founder of Evergreen Airlines, Del Smith. Smith, like many great achievers in aviation, has contributed […]