One of the great truths of flying is the admonition, “He who stops getting better stops being good.” We must constantly strive for the perfection we may never achieve, just to keep our skills sharp. Becoming satisfied with being almost good enough means that we’re no longer trying to stay on centerline, on altitude or more »

The ancient and honorable art of slipping an aircraft to achieve a desired flight path is an excellent tool to keep in one’s kit-bag of aviation tricks. Once employed regularly to adjust a landing approach, slipping has become an infrequently used maneuver, chiefly because modern airplanes have been fitted with effective wing flaps that can more »

The home stretch of the quest for a helicopter rating add-on to my airplane commercial was the most intensely challenging and rewarding aeronautical experience I have ever had. Fifty-plus years and several thousand hours of flight experience—time that included crop dusting, bush flying in Africa, King Air charter work in the Northeast, advanced glider aerobatics, more »

“If you’re going to fly low,” said my first flight instructor, “you had better know how to do it right.” We then cranked up the old Aeronca Champion and went out for a low-level dual excursion around the countryside. As I found out during his pre-planned route, things looked different from a traffic-pattern perspective. We more »

When it comes to high-risk flight, we usually think VFR into IMC, low-level maneuvering or run-ins with thunderstorms. Rightly so, too. Those scenarios, along with the ever-present villain “loss of control” lurking nearby, are the riskiest in flying. Training, on the other hand, is, statistically speaking, the safest aviating you can do this side of more »

There is a subtle yet profound difference between the learning of something and the knowing of that thing. You can learn by reading, but you don’t begin to know until you begin to try to do. Part One of this three-part series ended with my first sustained “controlled” hover—nothing steady or rock solid about it, more »

There’s no difference between flying in daylight and flying at night—except you can’t see anything. So goes the sage advice from my old flight instructor, and he’s essentially right. The airplane doesn’t know or care that its pilot is visually impaired during the hours of darkness. It performs and responds just as it does in more »

I was bewildered during preflight and startup—vaguely familiar but with way more steps that I didn’t fully understand—couldn’t yet correlate. I was sure that once we got going—got airborne—I’d be at home. After all, I’d been flying airplanes for many years. This was my introductory flight lesson for the rotor wing add-on rating to my more »

The latter can look a lot like the former, especially when all there is to see is the aftermath.