Pilot Proficiency

As I write this, the mercury here in New Jersey is inching into the 90s. It seems like just a few weeks ago the trees were still budding. But summer has arrived, and with it, all the new flight planning considerations of the season. Most often, we think of summer as the time for thunderstorms […]

The debate over whether or not to reintroduce spins to primary flight training has proponents on both sides, but most pilots agree that strapping on a parachute (required by FARs) and experiencing flight around all axes is a worthwhile exercise, if you can find the time and place. A cottage industry has built up around […]

During the most intense of the Vietnam War years, I had a strong sense that I was the luckiest young sailor in the Navy, as I luxuriated in a serendipitous assignment as an air rescue swimmer and H-34 crew chief stationed in Hawaii. Operating workhorse Sikorsky S-58 helicopters out of Pearl Harbor and Barbers Point […]

As of April 20, a computer has been generating digital notices to airmen (NOTAMs) for Atlantic City (NJ) International Airport (KACY). The technical innovation, set to expand to several other airports soon, is said to offer numerous advantages over human-generated notams, according to FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt. For example, notams may now be transmitted to […]

Though I thoroughly enjoyed being the guest of US Airways, after two tiring sessions in its simulators, I was ready for a break. The Boeing 757 and 737 had been fun and, for the most part, understandable to me. I had survived assorted V1 cuts and wind shear in both airplanes and was pretty well […]

The e-mail we received here at Flying from Col. Sid “Scroll” Mayeux, chief of aviation safety at the United States Air Force Safety Center, was a little hard to believe. “Last year (Fiscal Year 2009),” Mayeux’s e-mail read, “was the USAF’s safest year in aviation safety, with 17 Class A Aviation Flight Mishaps for a […]

A pleasant spring jaunt on a sunny day often leads to meandering down a winding river. It’s one of the most scenic trips you can make, and a light airplane makes it so much more thrilling than floating downstream in an inner tube. But before you succumb to the temptation to skim too close to […]

I sometimes chuckle when I think about the complexity of the electrical systems in new airplanes, particularly single-engine airplanes. Most current production singles have multiple electrical buses, more than one electrical power source and, often, emergency backup batteries. And that’s great. But there is still only one engine, and if it quits, the airplane is […]

The idea was to get away. We’d just learned that the life of the engine in our Cardinal ¡ha terminado! And, even after we decided what to do about replacing the engine, it would be some time before we’d be able to fly the airplane again. In the meantime, the IFR certification (transponder and pitot-static […]

With National Learn to Fly Day approaching (May 15), I’m reminded of some of my own “first flights. “A couple months ago, I got a Facebook message from a high school friend whose father had some medical problems. He’s now on the mend, but one of the things my friend told me was that her […]