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Cross-Country Flying Stories

Cross-country flying stories from Bill Cox offer fantastic insight into what pilots face on long distance flights. Dig into our X-Country Log today.

The Paranoia Of Landings

Landings aren’t the most important thing, they’re the only thing—not

I had been hired to fly a Cessna 340 from Torrance, Calif., to Glasgow, U.K., on an Atlantic tour with the owner in the right seat. The first four days of the trip had gone well. We had departed Torrance, stopped in Denver and made it to Ohio the first day, then managed to have lunch in Bangor and fly on to Goose Bay the second day.

Pilots N Paws

Here’s a way for pilots to help save the lives of some of our best friends

Like many of you, I’ve owned dogs for as long as I can remember, probably longer.

Ferry Flying As A Career?

It’s not the glamorous life everyone thinks it is

I receive more e-mail and snail mail from readers about ferry flying than on all other subjects combined.

From Hero To Bum—Almost

You can learn from your mistakes…if you can just survive them

It was January 1989, and I had just delivered a new Grand Caravan to Comair in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Dodging The Tornados

“Oh, by the way, could you drive a new T182 back from Lakeland, Fla., to Long Beach, Calif.?”

There are worse jobs in aviation. It was during the last two days of Sun ’n Fun 2009 that I got the call from Tom Jacobson of Tom’s Aircraft in Long Beach.

Singapore By Bonanza

Flying a Bonanza to Singapore offers an education in “managing” thunderstorms

He was a regular reader of this space and he called a while back wondering if I’d be interested in ferrying his pristine A36TC Bonanza from El Monte, Calif., to Singapore. Gee, lemme think about that for 30 seconds.

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.

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.”

Return To Goose Bay

There’s nothing so constant as change. Trouble is, change is hard to come by in the far north.

When I returned to Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada, in early December to complete the delivery of the world’s brightest Marchetti (yellow and red with blue stars, formerly owned by an air show pilot), I was hoping it was cold enough that ice season was pretty much over. It was, but not without a few dying gasps.

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.