Pilot Stories
Enjoy pilot stories? Our Pilot Talk section is full of informative and entertaining flying tales from accomplished pilot authors.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 Traveling By “Corporate” Airplane
A local breakfast flight emphasizes the value of corporate aviation
 I’ve owned personal airplanes almost since I earned my pilot’s license 43 years ago. I didn’t buy my first airplane, a Globe Swift, specifically for business (in fact, I don’t recall ever flying it in conjunction with a story), but most of the half-dozen airplanes I’ve owned since have been employed primarily in pursuit of profit. |
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 Glass Half Empty?
Life & our perception of it
 I’ve been pacing around this semi-dark room, struggling for the words I want to put on this electronic page. This is the first time this has happened in decades. Usually, I just sit down and the words flow. During the week, something happens where part of my mind says, “Yeah, they’d like hearing about that.” But tonight, I’m struggling, and I only just now figured out why: I’m entirely too fixated on the “what ifs” of the new economic era we’re stumbling into. I’m not sure which is worse, the situation or the fact that I’m fixated on it. |
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Tuesday, April 21, 2009 CSI Insurance: Excogitations On LSA Crashes, Part Deux
A discussion about LSA insurance rates
 Last month, Mike Adams, vice president of underwriting for Avemco Insurance (www.avemco.com), shared fascinating insights drawn from Avemco’s LSA claims data. Avemco’s conclusion: Incomplete dealer transition training for new S-LSA owners was the biggest contributor to accident claims. Avemco responded by requiring new owners to complete five hours dual and a flight review sign-off from a dealer rep to qualify for solo coverage.
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Tuesday, April 14, 2009 We Fly the F-22 Raptor
Here’s what it’s like to fly the world’s most sophisticated fighter – sort of.
 I’m cruising at 40,000 feet above Nevada in America’s front-line fighter. Perched out on the pointy end, I can’t see what’s following behind, but I know it’s roughly 63 feet long and weighs as much as 64,000 pounds. |
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Tuesday, April 7, 2009 More Than Monitoring
Glass cockpits ease workload, but pilots shouldn’t forget to maintain their flying proficiency
 While I was at an FBO at the Westchester County Airport north of New York City a couple of days ago, a guy I hadn’t seen in a long time walked in. We immediately started catching up on a host of things, not the least of which were the predictable topics of what we’re flying and how much (or little) we’re getting in the air these days.
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Tuesday, April 7, 2009 From The Editor: Low & Slow
 You’d normally find her looping and rolling at 250 mph in front of thousands of spectators at the industry’s biggest air shows, but this month, aerobatic champ Patty Wagstaff takes us on a different kind of adventure, low and slow above elephants, rhinos and cheetahs in the remote wilderness of Kenya. |
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Tuesday, April 7, 2009 Protecting Kenya’s National Parks
Training the Kenya Wildlife Service Airwing
 I often wear a little leather choker with two bronze elephant tusks. I picked it up a few years ago in a Nairobi gallery called Matt Bronze, and it reminds me of the wild things that still live in Kenya. |
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 Why Retract?
To retract or not to retract? That is the question.
 My first airplane was a retractable, but it was sometimes hard to tell. It was a purely stock 1946 Globe Swift GC1B, and while the main wheels would retract—eventually—there often seemed to be little effect on performance. Though the airplane was a cute little devil and a fairly primo example of its kind, its performance was a country mile behind the “book.” |
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 Early-Morning Cockpits
Right at this moment, aviation lives are being lived that we can’t imagine
 As I was out walking this morning, my brain, as is usually the case, decided to go somewhere else so it didn’t have to deal with the tedium of exercising. This time, it began visiting cockpits around the world. In a matter of seconds, film clips of pilots, who at that exact moment were readying their birds for flight, started playing in the theater of my mind.
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