Pilot Proficiency

Aviation biofuels hold many promises, perhaps the most important being their ability to yield reductions in greenhouse gases emitted by aircraft in flight. Still, airlines will be willing to transition to sustainable fuels only if there is a financial case to do so. Fuel costs are a significant portion of an airline’s overall operating costs […]

In the late 1950s, Pat Bryson dared to do what no other female in her small southern Missouri town of West Plains had ever done. She dreamed of learning to fly. When she was 15, she begged her father to allow her to take a ride in an airplane, a Cessna 170 that a man […]

We’ve all heard the term, but what is bonus depreciation and how does it work? Normally, when a business purchases a piece of durable capital equipment such as a printing press, a backhoe or a corporate jet, that business is allowed to deduct the cost of the equipment from its taxable income, thereby reducing its […]

As those lucky enough to see the Giants take on the Patriots in this year’s Super Bowl rematch prepare to make the trip to Indy, a number of FBOs are taking extra steps to vie for the large increase in private aircraft traffic. One FBO kicking off the festivities in a big way is Million […]

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 Lin Caywood, who recently stopped by Cardinal Air in Siler City, North Carolina, in a Cessna 182T. Here’s what she has to say about the experience. Cardinal Air […]

Airlines this week diverted a handful of flights on polar routes to avoid communications disruptions from a solar radiation storm that scientists said was the strongest to hit the Earth since 2005. The geomagnetic storm caused minor disruptions for U.S. airlines, with Delta saying it altered the routes of some Asia-bound flights to more southerly […]

(February 2012) At first glance the NTSB report seemed like a typical “non-instrument-rated pilot takes off into IMC conditions” accident. The pilot had accumulated close to 400 hours during the five years since he had earned his private pilot certificate, mostly in the accident airplane. He was eager to depart on a trip that he […]

__Never have I enjoyed glass so much. This is even better than the Learjet martini glasses a friend gave to me — much more expensive too. Nor am I speaking of Dale Chihuly’s glass concoctions. What we’ve done, my wife and I, is to replace the old instruments in our 31-year-old Cheyenne with the Garmin […]

Weather conditions make for a turbulent ride.

I was surprised when I read recently that many new airline pilot job applicants struggle with decoding basic metar weather reports. It would seem to me that if you’ve done enough flying to reach the interview stage with a commercial carrier, you would have interpreted hundreds if not thousands of metars along the way. Maybe […]