Pilot Proficiency

(Image: AOPA) I spent much of last week on a short vacation. My wife, twin 7-year-old sons and I hiked from museum to museum under the veil of sterile airspace that hovers over our nation’s capital. It was a little depressing to visit my friend Mary Miller at Signature DCA only to compare the abandoned […]

It seems like one of the simplest flights possible. Grab your flight bag and head off to the airport to practice some touch-and-goes. There is obviously no need for flight planning. The weather is beautiful and forecast to stay that way, so there is no need to check the weather. You are not planning to […]

YouTube is chock full of videos featuring airplanes landing with landing gear retracted or partially extended. One reason is that there is often plenty of time for news crews to arrive by helicopter as the pilot of the stricken airplane kills time to burn off fuel. If you are unlucky enough to experience a ‘gear […]

Back in 1989, businessman Wally David made an interesting observation: Computer graphics technology was improving so dramatically that a whole new realm of simulator training was about to become possible. With the new graphics technology, a non-moving Flight Training Device (FTD) might be able to provide a realistic sensation of movement simply by incorporating high-quality, […]

Whether it involves a national TV news reporter or simply a friend looking for fast answers, all of us pilots become designated experts when a high profile accident occurs. And we need to recognize some priorities. Today’s news “industry” is extremely competitive, and there is a strong motivation to seek out headlines and quotes that […]

Rich Karlgaard is a late bloomer. At least, in terms of aviation. “I never had an itch to fly until I read a New York Times Sunday Magazine piece called “Turn Left at Cloud 109″ by James Fallows, which appeared on Thanksgiving weekend in 1999,” says Karlgaard. “It was about Cirrus. A couple of days […]

My July 16 Flying Tip discussed vertigo and how insidious a hazard it can be. Dennis Doyle of Tahoe Turbines in California responded with his own tip — a sort of ‘poor-man’s synthetic vision’ that uses your imagination instead of a computer database. Doyle wrote that he has been flying since 1965 and developed his […]

If you’re here at EAA AirVenture, chances are you’ve been tempted by some cutting edge device you’ve seen in the display booths. There’s also a good chance you’ve expanded the budget envelope and you’re bringing one of them home with you. Normally, you’d open the box, lay out all the accessories in their plastic bags […]

Even though I fly a Technologically Challenged Airplane, I do have a Garmin 396 with datalinked XM Weather. My trip to Oshkosh last Friday would not have worked without it. I filed IFR from home base, Somerset Airport in New Jersey, to my fuel stop at Sandusky, Ohio. With the headwinds forecast by fltplan.com, I […]

My bags are packed. The venerable V-tail is perky and ready. Even the weather looks like it ought to cooperate for my trip to aviation’s equivalent of the Promised Land — Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and the annual EAA AirVenture. If you’re looking forward to the same pilgrimage next week, there might be a few checklist items […]