September 6, 2016

The Joy Of Night Flying

It’s a slightly esoteric joy, but flying at night can be strangely satisfying.

Tonight, I fly in my own sensory deprivation chamber, a semi-anechoic capsule seemingly isolated from reality. The sun rolled down beneath the Earth hours ago, leaving me in a blackness well beyond merely dark. It seems there’s no outside light above or below, forward or aft, left or right. I’m suspended in an obsidian void more »

July 6, 2016

The Flight(s) Of Pink Lady

In Alaska, airplanes truly can take on any mission

The sound is unmistakable. Today, I’d recognize that sound in the first two seconds, but 50 years ago, it was totally alien to me. It was high pitched and guttural at the same time, the smooth, even roar of a gasoline-powered monster, a 1650 hp supernova on a leash. The first time I heard it, more »

May 23, 2016

Mountains Are My Friends

Flying above the big rocks need not be terrifying

Mountains have always represented the ultimate nemesis to some pilots. Though I understand the apprehension, I grew up in Alaska and California, so I accepted vertical terrain as normal, perhaps the ultimate and most spectacular manifestation of Earth’s variety. Learning to fly in Anchorage and Long Beach, I dealt with mountains during practically every flight, more »

April 27, 2016

Ode To The Fast Lane

Aviation is more than simply a means to an end. It’s an end in itself.

I wouldn’t want to be riding out on the wing tonight. The wind is roaring down out of the northwest like polar bear’s breath, a vicious torrent of air frozen by winter and twisted by the Rocky Mountains. Somewhere below, far down in a blanket of clouds and black sky one to three miles deep, more »

March 23, 2016

SR-71 Blackbird: An Appreciation

It was and remains the fastest jet that has ever flown

I’m not much on book reviews, but recently, I came across a new, coffee-table book I couldn’t put down. In fact, it was more likely a book I couldn’t pick up. “The Complete Book of the SR-71” is a massive, 10” x 13”, 260-page work by Colonel Richard H. Graham, USAF (retired). Following 210 combat more »

February 2, 2016

Sahara Sands And Skies

Following in the footsteps of St. X over the world's most expansive desert

The Navajo Chieftain seems to grumble at flying so early in the morning.

December 28, 2015

Checklists—Tedious But Necessary

Ignore checklists at your own risk

As one who has been trying to figure out this concept called flying for longer than I can remember, I’ve always been a little mystified as to why the same accidents seem to keep happening for the same reasons.

November 25, 2015

European Flyover

Flying Europe isn’t the bureaucratic nightmare that some pilots imagine

If speed is aviation’s ultimate excess, altitude is its great equalizer.

November 2, 2015

Alaska By The Inside Passage

Don’t be paranoid about the coastal route

Just as East Coast pilots count the Bahamas as something of an ultimate getaway, Left Coast aviators consider Alaska to be the destination of choice.

October 2, 2015

The Real Challenges Of Space

We all know what we’ve seen in the movies and on TV. What are the realities of space travel?

Like so many kids who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, I was fascinated by space travel. Most of the kids I knew in Alaska had the same fascination.

September 4, 2015

Memories Of Australia

Imagine a 2,200-mile-wide desert island with magnificent cities built on the coasts. That’s Australia.

Flying down from Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, your course line slowly merges with Australia’s east coast as you sneak in from the left.

July 7, 2015

Stupid Pilot Tricks

A couple of the really dumb things I did 40 years ago—or was it last year?—and got away with

My wife worked for Douglas Aircraft at the time, and she’d usually file for whatever vacation time she needed to turn what was nearly a nine- or 10-day holiday into two full weeks.

May 26, 2015

Frolicking In A Lake

Airplanes that can land on water combine the best of flying and floating

One of the nice things about growing up in Alaska was the opportunity to fly a variety of airplanes.

April 28, 2015

Andes: Home Of The Mountain Gods

They’re the second highest mountain range in the world, a stark contrast to the low-lying Amazon Delta

Head south from the U.S. toward Antarctica, and you’ll wind up paralleling a chain of mountains longer and taller than anything else in the Western Hemisphere.

February 24, 2015