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Pilot Stories

Enjoy pilot stories? Our Pilot Talk section is full of informative and entertaining flying tales from accomplished pilot authors.

Always The Weather

Fall, not winter, is the tough time in some parts of the world

If there’s one absolute truth about flying the North Atlantic in normally aspirated piston aircraft, it’s ice. Those pilots who’ve been flying the ocean at low level for a few years recognize airframe icing as perhaps the most dangerous threat.

Retreads & Me

We’re wearing out more than just our airplanes

I’m not sure what it means, but this morning I glanced down at the Tail-Dragger Dragger dolly that I use to push/pull my bird from its nest, and I realized that the tires are wearing out. Bald, as it were. I was a little surprised and asked myself, “Exactly how much mileage should we expect from the accessories we surround ourselves with while flying?”

Light-Sport Chronicles: Questions! So Many Questions!

The sport pilot rule is clear and easy to understand...except when it isn’t. Let’s dig a little deeper.

The sport pilot rule under which LSA pilots fly was intended to cover a broad array of recreational vehicles and conditions, gently wrapped within a beneficent, safety-minded envelope of permissions and restrictions.

Parachute Jump Operations

The risks go beyond just jumping out of an airplane

This past September, the NTSB completed a special investigation on accidents involving aircraft used in parachute jumping.

From The Editor: Milestones & New Beginnings

You may have noticed something physically and visually different about this issue! Starting this year, Plane & Pilot will feature higher-quality paper, with a larger overall size than ever before.

2008 Reno Air Races

Evolution of the Jet Class

In 2001, “the year that never was,” I was part of the initial attempt to race jet airplanes in the Reno Air Races.

Flight I’ll Never Forget: Entering A New Era

My first use of advanced avionics in the backcountry

finfIt was one of those cool fall mornings with low, scudding clouds. The kind where you keep blowing on cold, damp hands while loading the airplane and glancing occasionally at the leaden skies, the north country’s harbinger of imminent seasonal change.

Renewal

A simple, four-hour round-trip helps remind me of the reliability of GA airplanes

In most recognizable respects, the trip was hardly unusual. It was just an easy 280 nm hop from Long Beach to Groveland, Calif., for a speaking engagement before the Pine Mountain Lake Aviation Association, a typical out-and-back, 1+50 hop in the LoPresti Mooney, precursor to at least a four-pack of 400 to 600 nm trips around the Southwest.

Adventure Is In The Eye Of…

To some of us, just getting off the ground is an adventure

Elsewhere in this issue, we’re bantering around the phrase “adventure aircraft” as if it’s a universally understood term. Personally, I’m not sure it is. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think the term “adventure” itself is open to definition and is very much colored by your aviation life and how you live it—one man’s adventure is another’s ho-hum afternoon.

Decision Shock? Poppycock!

Just relax, and breathe...breathe...

In keeping with the buyer’s guide theme, I got to thinking about the epidemic of choices modern consumers face every day. There was a time when you’d walk into a fast-food place and order a burger, fries and Coke, and if you really felt like living large, you’d get a chocolate, strawberry or vanilla milkshake.