Pilot Proficiency

Whatever may be said about the FAA, it produces some useful publications. One of them is Advisory Circular 90-109A, Transition to Unfamiliar Aircraft. Not to be confused with its sister publication, AC 90-89, Amateur-Built Aircraft and Ultralight Flight Testing Handbook, AC 90-109A is directed at pilots beginning to fly an airplane of a type with […]

Weather is one of the biggest variables in general aviation flight and a contributing cause of many accidents. While there is no way for us pilots to control the weather, we can modify our flight paths to prevent unplanned encounters with Mother Nature. Fortunately, doing so has become a lot easier in the past few […]

If you enjoy watching airplanes, especially any of the quickly declining global fleet of jumbo jets, Muhammad Ali International—the old Standiford Field (KSDF)—in Louisville, Kentucky, is an excellent place. The home of UPS, KSDF offers the opportunity to see large Boeings—747s, 757s and 767s—as well as Airbus A300s and McDonnell Douglas MD-11s operating day and night. […]

Three men chartered a Beechcraft Bonanza for a late-night flight between Mason City (KMCW), Iowa, and Fargo (KFAR), North Dakota, about 200 nautical miles. The 21-year-old charter pilot’s initial review of the forecast that chilly February evening called for VFR weather with bases along the route at 5,000 feet and visibility of 10 miles. The only […]

Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the old nursery rhyme goes like this: “There was a little girl, / who had a little curl, / right in the middle of her forehead. / When she was good, / she was very good indeed, / and when she was bad she was horrid.” This sums up three […]

Dr. Amar Bose, founder of the Massachusetts corporation that bears his name, has died at age 83. Best known for his unique 901-series hi-fi speaker system and the Wave radio, Bose also developed the principles of electronic noise canceling headsets. He was also a revered member of the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, […]

Cruising among the flight levels in excess of Mach 0.82 most times, our weather radar typically remained in an active status. The Boeing 777′s system was sophisticated enough to adjust its sweep to the attitude of the airplane and turn itself on during takeoff for predictive wind-shear-detection warnings. It was the primary long-range tool for […]

It’s important to have one whether you’re a new pilot or an experienced one.

I recently selected 32 accident analyses, from the nearly 500 that I have written since I took over Flying’s Aftermath column in 1980, and assembled them into a book called Why? Thinking About Plane Crashes. It’s available from Amazon as a paperback or an e-book. I hope someone will buy it. I would pledge that […]

It speaks volumes about our industry that, even during economic downturns, aviation companies still find ways to innovate; indeed, one could argue that some of aviation’s greatest innovations have come when times were hardest. While new-airplane introductions in 2011 were rare, there were innovations galore in the fields of avionics, electronic flight bag technology (read […]