The Miracle Of Clouds
Although I’ve made some slight progress in learning to fly during the last 38 years, I’ve never even …
News
We keep you up to date on the latest news about personal flying and share incisive, relevant opinion on this ever changing activity.
Learning From Mistakes
One of the best things that the FAA ever did to promote aviation safety was to provide immunity from FAR violations prosecution for pilots who voluntarily report problems and incidents to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) before the FAA gets wind of what went on. During most months, NASA’s ASRS receives about 2,000 to 3,000 reports from pilots, controllers and mechanics. Quite a bit of the information works its way into studies of various safety issues.
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Setting The Record Straight
Lyn “I’m the boss?” Freeman, Plane & Pilot’s leader (a scary thought, at best) challenged me to put my …
Learn To Fly!
Learning how to fly means, among other things, mastering the controls of an airplane, understanding weather theory and unraveling the …
The Columbia STS-107 Accident
All of us in aviation lost seven friends last February. No one can forget the horrifying video of the space …
Gone With The Wind
With apologies to Margaret Mitchell, most pilots would welcome the opportunity to be “gone with the wind” and let Mother Nature help keep a lid on upwardly creeping fuel costs. Just a few days ago, a friend of mine found that favorable winds aloft coupled with a direct-to-destination IFR routing cut more than a half-hour off the usual trip home to New York after a business meeting in Ohio. Even better, there was an absence of shear and turbulence, making for a smooth, quick ride. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. From time to time, National Transportation Safety Board investigators have to look at situations in which the capabilities of the pilot and/or the aircraft were exceeded by wind conditions.
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Whispers
At first, I wasn’t certain I had heard it. It was a faraway voice, not quite a whisper, and …
Build A Plane Takes Off!
Recently, Plane & Pilot asked pilots if they’d be interested in a project that we named Build A Plane. The …
Take A Good Look
Back when I was a student pilot, I developed a habit during the preflight inspection of stepping back and pausing to get an overall visual impression of the control surfaces on the airplane. It started after I had noticed that one of the ailerons on a Cherokee I was about to take out for a solo flight didn’t look quite right. From a distance, it was easy to see that while the aileron on one side was in alignment, the other aileron was sagging significantly.
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Becoming Invisible
Officially, the EAA AirVenture was over. Only a few hours earlier, a voice had boomed over the PA system, saying …
