Pilot Proficiency

I was irritated to receive a phone call assigning me to a flight the next day, which was both my wedding anniversary and Thanksgiving, but such is the life of a charter pilot. I would be riding right seat in our Piaggio Avanti with its regular captain, Mike, taking a family on a last-minute flight […]

Just because some business aircraft meet the technical specifications of Level 4 Automation guidelines doesn’t necessarily mean all the flight crews operating these sophisticated systems completely understand the procedures they’re asking the computers to fly. Recently, two airports separated by some 2,500 miles have experienced nearly the same number of pilot deviations on respective RNAV […]

“Hinge moment” is the technical name for the force required to deflect a control surface. In small, relatively slow airplanes, hinge moments are not very large; pilots move the controls with ease. But as control surfaces get larger and speeds get higher, hinge moments grow rapidly. They increase with the chord length of the control […]

It was the perfect Minnesota fall day, golden and breezy with a hint of the smell of wood smoke in the air, and just enough warmth to assist one in maintaining a certain healthy denial of the bitter months to come. I drove out to Flying Cloud Airport (KFCM) with my 8-year-old nephew Dylan in […]

What does it mean to gain experience as a pilot? Some say it’s about “filling the experience bucket before you empty the luck bucket.” There’s a lot of truth to that old saw, but becoming a safe pilot surely means more than just racking up hours. After all, 10,000-hour ATPs are not immune to having […]

It’s become a ritual: flying every autumn to my “secret place” in south central Ohio. This unique area exists because a series of glaciers, having scoured everything to the north and west into flat prairie, mysteriously (at least to me) came to a halt. The sudden, abrupt change in topography here at “the edge of […]

Each year, the National Business Aviation Association’s Safety Committee convenes to decide which business aviation operational issues are most in need of risk mitigation. The NBAA Safety Committee’s goal is to promote safety-focused discussion and advocacy throughout business aviation, as well as to help the association prioritize its safety-enhancement efforts. The list’s creation each year […]

How long does it take to get comfortable in a new airplane? Familiarity with type and class may shorten the honeymoon, but with every new airplane comes a new set of quirks and personality traits. It is like a marriage. With the Premier 1 that my wife and I bought recently, some things were familiar […]

The first few pilots to train for their type ratings in Pilatus’ PC-24 Super Versatile Jet using FlightSafety International’s full motion simulator are hard at work at the company’s learning center in Dallas. They’re training in FlightSafety’s FS1000 PC-24 simulator, which includes the VITAL 1100 visual system, electric motion, control loading and a new instructor […]

Do you know the difference between civil twilight, nautical twilight and astronomical twilight?