Weather

(December 2011) If you live in a snowy climate, chances are good your logbook looks a little thin during the winter months. It’s happened to me. I started flying for transportation shortly after I moved to Connecticut in the mid-1990s direct from sunny southern California. Even after I had my instrument rating, the winter played […]

If you don’t venture on sullen skies, You never come to sunkissed valleys. If your palms have never been moist, Your heart has never thrilled. If you have never been afraid, You have never been courageous. Gill Robb Wilson, The Airman’s World When my sister Mary and I started flying, we learned to check aviation […]

It seems as though our most vivid memories come from some of our worst experiences in life. While many pilots don’t remember their first exposure to structural icing, they probably will never forget their worst. For many, it remains etched in their brain forever. But, we can avoid making painful lasting memories if we do […]

Air traffic controllers are terrific people dedicated to helping pilots complete their flights smoothly and safely. That is a true statement until the smooth part, or maybe even the safe part, comes into conflict with the only absolute requirement in ATC, which is to separate airplanes under its control from one another by required minimum […]

When Flying Editor in Chief Mac McClellan read the headline and the short description of this week’s Tip, he was kind enough to share with me the text for his Left Seat column that will appear in the August issue. I interpreted this as his way of hinting at me to read it, and then […]

Three aviation-oriented colleges — the University of North Dakota (UND), the University of Alaska and Embry Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) — are co-opting on a research project aimed at clarifying pilots’ needs for in-cockpit weather. The study also hopes to gain insight into how best to educate pilots in using the available weather data. Dubbed […]

The idea was to get away. We’d just learned that the life of the engine in our Cardinal ¡ha terminado! And, even after we decided what to do about replacing the engine, it would be some time before we’d be able to fly the airplane again. In the meantime, the IFR certification (transponder and pitot-static […]

In the mid-1980s, I was working on the line at a small Minnesota FBO/flight school and flying when my meager income would allow. Early on in my training, my instructor was fortunate enough to find a second job flying right-seat in a North American Sabreliner Series 60. The chief pilot for this small corporate flight […]

As I think back over my life, I can come up with only one day I remember. Really remember. Oh, I remember graduating from high school, but I don’t remember anything else about the day. I remember watching the birth of my daughter, but I have no idea what I had for breakfast on that […]

The snow level in the Oakland hills dropped to about 1,500 feet the other day, a description that makes sense only in mountainous areas at the edges of winter, or in California pretty much all of the time. Since it’s almost never cold enough for snow to survive at sea level, snow in California is […]