Pilot Proficiency

Some cravings are easily sated. A waffle cone of soft-serve ice cream, for example, or a hot greasy Big Mac (with a supersize side order of regret). Other, more deep-seated desires, however, seem only to intensify once indulged. Wanderlust is that way for me: The more that I see, the more I’m compelled to roam […]

The NTSB included among factors related to the accident the pilot’s overconfidence in himself—and the airplane.

Who would have thought that a 600-foot alteration of the departure track out of Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., could make the difference in almost completely eliminating accidental incursions of the infamous P-56, the prohibited airspace over the White House? As an added layer of prevention, pilots are also provided with better visual awareness […]

What would you call a trip to Quebec City; Bluie West Eight, Greenland; Reykjavik, Iceland; Stravanger, Norway; Amsterdam; Cannes on the French Riviera; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Salzburg, Austria; Lucerne, Switzerland; Tallinn, Estonia; Stockholm; and Edinburgh, Scotland? A trip of a lifetime? What if it were in a private jet? How about if you were the copilot, […]

Mention Morristown to an active pilot, and they’ll probably be quick to pinpoint it as a busy New Jersey airport 20 or so miles west of downtown Manhattan. This month’s Chart Wise, however, focuses on another Morristown, population 29,000, this one in Tennessee, a half-hour northeast of Knoxville. For readers wondering what kind of educational […]

It wasn’t long after takeoff that I noticed that my ammeter showed a steady discharge of 3 or 4 amps. The ammeter reads charging current going to the battery, and so it ought to show 10 or 15 amps at first, gradually diminishing as the battery regains the energy it expended during start-up and taxi. […]

I have been thinking about some fascinating but challenging situations — events you hope never to encounter that involve decisions and require reactions to life-or-death consequences. “When to give up,” a decision not naturally part of most pilots’ DNA, has been rattling around in my brain for a long time, so here goes. Two events […]

Summer, glorious summer! It snuck right up on me. Sailing the relentlessly sunny Caribbean for seven months aboard Windbird, the pageantry of northern seasons played out distantly across the flickering screens of muted beach-bar TVs: Halloween horror flicks, cable-news Snowmageddons, Yankees-Red Sox at Fenway Park. So when Dawn and I hurricane-prepped and hauled Windbird at […]

There was a lot of blood in the water as we flew over the bowhead whale being harvested for the sustenance of the native Inupiat community of Barrow, Alaska. It was a thought-provoking and broadening experience of the type we found we were having regularly after we began flying our own airplane for transportation. Personal […]

As we taxied in, Roland, whom I’ve known for 35 years, marshaled us slowly, almost solemnly, with a look of anguish on his countenance. It was immediately clear that things were worse than I thought. He pointed his orange wand at the right wing and shook his head. I knew we had hit a bird. […]