Pilot Proficiency

We look through the glass and what do we see?

Just when it seemed like the threat from the coronavirus was subsiding, fall turned to winter, and many of us were forced back inside. We soon got sick and tired of being cooped up. Our national mood seemed to be: enough already with the distancing, masks, 6-feet-apart thing. It soon became clear that people interpreted […]

I became a private pilot 20 years ago, not long after my 19th birthday. Like every new pilot, I couldn’t wait to take my first passenger for a ride. The day after the check ride, I called one of my best college friends and invited him to the airport for a sightseeing flight in a […]

Fear is something I frequently confront in many of the activities I choose to do with my free time. From motorcycle racing to surfing to backcountry snowboarding, I am often faced with that familiar chemical release when my brain believes I’ve written a check my body can’t cash. Daniel T. Blumstein, an ecologist at UCLA, […]

On a Sunday morning in April 2004, an air-ambulance helicopter approaching to land in VFR conditions found a blanket of fog forming over the Ukiah Municipal Airport (KUKI) in California. The automatic surface-observation system reported a 100-foot overcast and visibility between 1 and 1¾ miles. The ATP-rated pilot obtained a clearance for the localizer approach […]

When the text blipped across my iPhone screen, I couldn’t help but grin. My friend—and JetBlue captain—Mike Strauss and his wife, Christa, were inviting my wife and I to his newly purchased home in Colorado. One of the attractive aspects of the invitation was that the trip out west would be flown in his Cessna […]

The flight began normally. Little did I know how crazy and funny things would end up becoming. It was my student’s last flight before his first check ride in the private pilot portion of our Part 141 curriculum, which comes just before a student’s first solo. We were flying a Cessna 152. We had a […]

When you combine rockets, planes, boats and kids, you have it all.

An in-depth look at the accidents that result from loss of power on departure.

Planning the high-speed descent phase of a flight requires some judgment, especially during summer months when we like to cruise in cool comfort above the build-ups and the haze layer. That’s usually 10,000 feet or higher in summer, at least where I do most of my flying on the eastern half of the country (mountain […]