Pilot Proficiency

As the story of air traffic controllers ignoring a recent distress call spread, Flying readers took to Facebook this week to voice their opinions on the incident. Here are some snippets from the informal debate sparked by the story: _“Obviously, the controller had a cognitive bias in place, but I think the whole incident could […]

A major restoration project is underway of one of the most famous B-17s, the Memphis Belle, at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. This Flying Fortress, which completed 25 missions over Europe before returning to the United States, was made famous by the […]

The bluebonnets are in bloom at a Texas airport near you. While many think of dusty tumbleweed towns when they think of Texas, when it comes to springtime, few places in the world can rival Texas for its wildflower displays. We’re thankful that Llano Municipal Airport (KAQO), along with many Texas Hill Country Airports, keep […]

A new site simply called “Wind Map” has taken the invisible and made it really easy to see. The brainchild of Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg, the wind map isn’t intended for pilots. In fact, they say in a cute disclaimer, “Please do not use the map or its data to fly a plane, sail […]

If you’re planning a trip that is too far to take in your personal airplane and you want to avoid the airlines, you can quickly connect with charter operators through a new company called PlaneFinder. You simply go online to request a charter flight by entering the departure and arrival airports, the number of passengers […]

Have you ever advanced the power, gathered momentum on the runway and pulled back on the yoke or stick at the appropriate airspeed – only to be greeted by a shaking in the controls as you lift off that makes your mind start thinking about pre-stall buffets, your uncomfortably high angle of attack and proximity […]

While details of the F/A-18 crash in Virginia Beach, Virginia are still murky, as always there is something to learn from an accident. In this case, we should all think about how current we are with emergency procedures. Military pilots spend countless hours training in simulators and airplanes for events that likely will never happen […]

When First Landings, the flight school where I did my Sport Pilot training, announced it was organizing a North Carolina “adventure flight,” I was intrigued. The plan was for a group of us to depart early one Friday morning in April from Apopka, Florida’s X04 for a long weekend of hiking and whitewater rafting in […]

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that crosswind technique begins on the ground. Taxiing can definitely be a challenge in itself. If you’re taxiing into a quartering headwind, turn the controls into the wind for full aileron deflection. Conversely, with a quartering tailwind, you’ll want to turn away from the direction the wind is coming […]

As we all know, general aviation covers a wide range of aircraft types, from Cessna Skycatchers and Robinson R22s to Gulfstream G650s and Sikorsky S92s and everything in between. Whether it’s a vintage Cherokee flying 40 hours a year or a shiny new King Air flying 400, if it’s privately owned and flown for business […]