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In the winter of 1985, we decided to bring our Pitts to Alaska. Some might question the sanity of flying any airplane to Alaska in winter, much less one so small it weighs the same as a Harley Fat Boy, but then, some people are always up for an adventure. It seemed like a good more »
The scene is in a thousand movies. A clear night sky and a glass-calm ocean. A million brilliant stars, every one of them reflected by water. The horizon is difficult to find. Then some ship enters the scene, slowly, and the water is swirled in its wake, troubled just enough to mark the border between more »
The NTSB recently issued its report on a “loss of control” accident from October 10, 2013, in which a Cessna 340A, a cabin-class, pressurized piston twin, crashed while maneuvering during a missed approach on a low-weather day at Hampton Roads Executive Airport (KPVG) in Norfolk, Virginia. The fatal mishap involved a complex combination of factors. more »
Regional airlines have long been the conventional steppingstone for civilian pilots to get to a legacy airline. Lots of hopeful pilots signed promises to lenders and racked up debt—often into the six-digit range—while chasing their dream to fly. “I’ll pay it off when I’m at Delta,” many reasoned. Changing times made us reevaluate those goals. more »
Population of the United States in 1903: 80.6 million Total number of pilots in 1903: 1 Percentage of population: 0.00000001 Population of the United States in 1929: 121.8 million Total number of pilots in the United States in 1929: 9,215 Percentage of population: 0.000075 Population of the United States in 1975: 216 million Number of more »
I grimaced and tried to suppress a groan as I braced myself atop the chain-link fence before throwing my right leg over the top bar. It wasn’t much of a fence, coming up only to around my chest, and I’d been topping barriers far taller than this one since I was a kid. But the more »
As the old saying goes, if folks were meant to fly, they would have been born with wings. I might add that if they had been intended to attempt flight through icing conditions, they would have been blessed with dimpled wings like the Namib desert beetle or coated with a slippery substance like the carnivorous more »
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 »
The early instructions are clear. Abeam the numbers, reduce power. First flaps. Pitch for speed. When the far numbers are 45 degrees behind your shoulder, turn downwind to base. Pitch for speed. Second flaps. Watch your speed. There are stories about what comes next. Base to final. This is the most beautiful turn in the more »
Suppose you or I had taken off on a solo flight, and within minutes, had to execute an emergency landing that resulted in serious injuries and a banged-up airplane. There was no harm to anyone on the ground, and no buildings or vehicles were hit. When the NTSB finished its investigation, the narrative probably would more »
When I was younger, and for the longest time, it seems, when I ate pizza, I would invariably burn the top of my mouth. It generally happened when I was really hungry-desperate to eat. Eventually, after running the pizza-mouth-burn scenario through my head a million times, my imaginings led to strategies that helped avoid the more »
Before each departure from Heathrow Airport, I meet my fellow pilots at our Crew Report Centre. We shake hands and introduce ourselves, and if we’re early we may talk about the traffic or the football, or our plans for our time off wherever it is on the planet that we’re about to go together. There’s more »
I spent the winter of ’84 giving tailwheel instruction, getting more aerobatic training and working on my helicopter rating. After I soloed the Bell 47G, I had a lot of fun flying it to the base of the Chugach Mountains that rise over Anchorage. I carved my initials in the snow with the skids and more »
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 »
I’d walk in the front door of my grandparents’ house with butterflies in my stomach and laughter held tight in the back of my throat, because I knew my Uncle Tom was waiting. My uncle was a professional wrestling fan, and his favorite wrestler at the moment was “The Claw” (aka Baron von Raschke). He’d more »
If you’ve been around aviation for any length of time, you know a few stories about so-called revolutionary aircraft that sounded too good to be true. Turns out, most of the time, they are. So, stop me if you’ve heard the one about the airliner that cruises at 600 mph, but lands on a 3,000-foot runway. more »
The NTSB recently finished its investigation of the October 28, 2013, accident involving a Cessna Citation 500 in which a nationally-known minister and the pilot were killed. Pastor Edward Dufresne, who was 72 years old, led the World Harvest Church in Murrieta, California, and used the twin-engine jet in his travels around the country for more »
Our Christmas morning wasn’t what it should have been: we got a call early on that my ex-brother-in-law had just unexpectedly died. He was only two years older than I am and a health freak. The net effect on me was stronger than I would have expected. It was as if the concept of mortality more »