General aviation weather safety is nothing to take lightly. Our pilot weather articles are designed to help you maintain your skills for flying in tough conditions and improve your overall aviation safety.
From airfactsjournal.com. Disruption is a hot topic these days, but the 16th century had plenty of it, too. In the span of a generation, the printing press (and the Protestant Reformation) fundamentally changed the way many Christians practiced their religion. Instead of listening to a priest interpret the Bible, the average churchgoer could read it more »
From airfactsjournal.com. At its most basic, flying an airplane is a never-ending series of decisions. Is the airplane airworthy? What’s the weather like? Where’s that other airplane going? When should I turn base? Failing to ask these questions and make timely decisions is a serious mistake—one that will earn you a place in an NTSB more »
Defining winter by the severity of cold weather on the North American continent can be a difficult task. In most years, anything south of a line through Atlanta, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Santa Fe and Los Angeles has a good chance of a modest winter. Any location above 35 degrees north latitude can reasonably expect more »
It happened on June 18, 2014: With thunderstorms popping, the pilot of a turbine-powered Piper Malibu PA46-310P JetPROP conversion seemed to be doing a good job of weather avoidance, but then made a turn and flew into a monstrous cell. The airplane crashed at Lehman, Texas, killing the pilot and both passengers. It took two more »
They say the three most useless things to a pilot are runway behind you, fuel not in your tanks, and altitude above you. So when you’re choosing your VFR cruise altitude for your next cross-country, is higher really better? It could be, but you have a lot to consider. Here are five things to think more »
Most prospective aviators are excited about joining Lindberg, Yeager and Hoover in the sky, but they’re usually less enthusiastic about investigating the ways of weather, at least until they start flying places. In this case when we say “weather,” we’re talking mostly wind. For safety’s sake, we need to understand the movement of fronts, development more »
Some aviators in the Northern U.S. apparently prefer to lock their airplane in the hangar each October and not come back until late April.
Today, a wide range of tools are available to help avoid those dangers, but each has limitations that must be understood in order to use them safely.
It was the classic example of baby- bird stupidity.
Neither the wind given to you by the tower, nor that shown on a mid-field wind sock, is likely to be what you actually experience when landing.
It’s one of the great paradoxes in aviation that one of the biggest killers of pilots —weather—is one of the least understood and least taught subjects in primary flight instruction.
Winter is as inevitable as aging, and for pilots who live in or fly to the northern latitudes, every winter will present significant challenges.
Contrary to the advice that aviation usually allows you to make most mistakes only once, I’ve been fortunate in 50 years of flying to make virtually all the bad mistakes, in some cases more than once.
I was circling at 4,500 feet in the designated contest holding area for the Borrego Springs Akrofest while another competitor finished his routine in the aerobatic box.
It has been a long day on a long cross-country flight. The weather forecasts have not been very accurate—you’re reminded of a quote from an anonymous wag: “Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers.”
Shortly after returning from a recent Grand Caravan delivery from Long Beach, Calif., to Seoul, Korea, I spoke at a LoPresti First Saturday event in Sebastian, Fla.
It was late March 1994, and I was waiting for wind—again. Mooney Aircraft had loaned me a new TLS in January so I could set several world records flying between Los Angeles and Jacksonville, Fla.
Deep, moist convection, better known as thunderstorms, are the nemesis of all aircraft, big or small. Avoidance is mandatory.