Pilot Proficiency

This feels a little bit too much like going to confession, but I’m going to come clean and admit I’m a paper-chart girl. Always have been, always will be. One of those rare, soon-to-be-extinct dinosaurs who still subscribes to printed charts. But before your jaw drops any farther, it might help to know I’m not […]

Congress created the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1915 “to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution.” What would eventually become the world’s largest and most productive aeronautical-research establishment began as a committee of 12 unpaid men with a budget of $5,000 per […]

“Stop, you’re getting your head down. Tell the pilot monitoring what you need. You seem to want to do everything by yourself.” So said Capt. Andy when I was the pilot flying early in my tenure on the Cessna Citation CJ3 at JetSuite. He was right. Up until then, all my flying had been single […]

When their equipment doesn’t work, pilots need to work a little harder.

The relationship between the chief pilot and the principal is extraordinary. Like our entrepreneur friend, Bill Cook, and his chief pilot, Bob Harbstreit, people in this relationship become mutually entwined. They develop very respectful and trusting relationships. I know of no parallel relationship outside of aviation. It is not unusual for entrepreneurs to fly as […]

It was a beautiful March day in 1976 in South Texas, and I was excited to be flying my Sweet Adeline women’s barbershop quartet from San Antonio to Amarillo, Texas, for our regional barbershop singing contest. My husband and I owned a 1965 Mooney M20C—yes, with a Johnson bar—and we flew it quite a bit […]

Because I’m both an airplane nut and history buff, many of my European work layovers involve either seeking out aerial adventures or investigating some bit of the 2,000 years of tumultuous history that seem to lurk around the continent’s every corner. Often, I am able to combine these interests—for a great deal of aviation history […]

Since competing in a local air race a few weeks back, on the heels of the Kentucky Derby and the Indianapolis 500, I’ve been ­wondering if this ­fascination—this lust to ­compete—is just part of our DNA. Are we ­genetically programmed to pit ourselves against each other to prove who’s the fastest, the most ­cunning, the […]

The airspeed indicator may be the oldest and most fundamental of the flight instruments, but it is also the one least suited to its job, which is primarily not to tell us how fast we are going but rather where we are in the flight envelope. It is pleasant to know, as we cruise along, […]

It all started with a girl in high school. She was cute, and her father was athletic. He worked in the court system just across from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, and at lunchtime he would play a game of squash. I had no idea what that was, but he encouraged me to find out […]