Pilot Proficiency

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 […]

April 2010 Flying cross-country by visual flight rules is a far less precise endeavor than flying IFR (see Robert Goyer’s IFR Flight Prep: A Whole New Game April 2010 article for more info). As a former Navy fighter pilot turned GA pilot once put it, VFR flight consists of “sniff-checking your way through weather” –– […]

April 2010 LIKE A LOT OF PILOTS who learned instrument flying in the mid ’90s, I got my ticket as new technology was just beginning to show up in the cockpits of small airplanes. Not that it did me much good at the time. My instrument training at FlightSafety Academy, then in Lakeland, Florida, was […]

THE WORDS “PLEASE CALL this phone number after you land” strike terror into the heart of any pilot. Sometimes the bad news comes in the form of a letter from the FAA. However it arrives, it is no fun to learn that you are being charged with an airborne deviation from the FARs. Despite some […]

Each month, Flying answers questions about the Sport Pilot/Light Sport Aircraft rule with assistance from the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), the authority on the opportunities available within the category commonly known as “Sport Pilot”: Q:Can an A&P (Airframe and Powerplant) mechanic sign off an annual condition inspection for an experimental light-sport aircraft or must it […]