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Air Facts was first published in 1938 by Leighton Collins, dedicated to “the development of private air transportation.” It’s a different world now, and it’s a different Air Facts. Relaunched in 2011 as an online journal, Air Facts still champions, educates, informs and entertains pilots worldwide with real-world flying experiences. More…

Nicos and the author after solo

My first solo — Cyprus style

Fly along with new contributor Adrian Ryan, as he shares the story of his first solo, at a busy airline airport in Cyprus. To top things off, the flight was just a few days before his 69th birthday. Do you remember the thrill of your first solo? Share your story.

iPad chart app

Washington Report: digital charts no longer free?

Washington report

The FAA seems to think all these iPad apps are a threat to their paper chart business, and are thus making noises about charging for the charting data that has been free for the past decade. Is the FAA's plan a necessary reaction to a changing market or a new and unneeded user fee that will hurt a vibrant industry?

Christmas Island

6000 Miles Across the Pacific in a Duchess

The mission was to fly my aircraft 6000 miles from my home in Auckland, New Zealand to its new home in California. What an opportunity! Over 40 hours of flying over the ocean to places you could only dream about. After all, how many private pilots have Pago Pago (PPG) and Christmas Island (CXI) in their log books?

Watson airport

Saying goodbye to an airport

I’ve been to plenty of funerals in my life, but never for an airport. But that’s the only way to describe what happened last week, when I joined a group of 13 other pilots and six airplanes to make the short flight to Blue Ash Airport (ISZ) and land on runway 24 one last time.

Ford Tri-Motor

Two Ford Tri-motor flights – 75 years apart

In 1935 I was six years old, and we were living in Ponca City, Oklahoma. One day a Ford Tri-motor flew into our grass airfield and offered rides, at a price, to our “city’s” inhabitants. I was completely hooked on aviation from that moment on, and determined that I wanted to be part of it.

Richard Collins' Cessna P210

Make the case for your airplane

To each pilot, the primary airplane chosen for flying has some appeal that tends to stand out. Here, we want to get pilots to comment on what they like best about the primary airplane flown, whether owned, leased or rented.

John’s Blog

Christmas reading list: 24 books for pilots to read in 2024

Six years after my last list, I still hate social media and I still love books, so I’m back with more recommendations—24 good aviation books for 2024. This is an eclectic mix, so I don’t expect readers to love every suggestion, but I believe there’s something for pilots to learn from almost any book, even if it doesn’t relate to aviation directly.

Weather flying means learning to read clouds

Whether I’m flying IFR or VFR, most weather decisions come down to looking at clouds and trying to figure out what they are trying to say. Is that weather convective or just harmless showers? Will the ride be bumpy or smooth? Can I top that cell? Is there ice in that cloud layer? The answer almost always depends on what the clouds look like.

Teardrop diagram

What’s wrong with the teardrop pattern entry

Having solved the impossible turn and other manufactured crises, the aviation training industry (or at least some YouTubers and keyboard warriors) has now turned its attention to the teardrop pattern entry. This “innovation” is alternately described as wildly unsafe or the only legal option for entering the traffic pattern. In reality it’s neither, but the bigger problem is that most pilots don’t even know what it means.

View John’s Blog

I Can’t Believe I Did That

Citabria on grass runway

The time when I almost landed short

I Can't Believe I Did That

The plane was perhaps 50 feet above the ground, but at least there was a smooth gravel under-run and the wheel pants were off. I had just enough energy to flare with a soft touchdown. I prepared myself for landing short. What an embarrassing end to the second leg of my Private pilot solo long cross-country.

airplane in grass

Centerline, centerline, centerline

I Can't Believe I Did That

The gusting wind from the east returns, pushing the aircraft toward the right side of the runway. In a matter of a few seconds, the grass infield fills my windshield. I didn’t get the thumb into the wind and I didn’t immediately get on the left rudder pedal to steer us back to the centerline. Years of training ignored in an instant which means we are now headed into the infield.

A dead stick landing and a chance encouter with Hal Shevers

I Can't Believe I Did That

At about 1,500 feet hawking the wind sock to determine my landing runway. The UNICOM frequency was quiet and I saw no other planes in the pattern. I turned away to re-enter on a 45 degree downwind. As I banked back to the field came a startling assault of silence. The engine quit—politely and with no shudder—it simply stopped running. I was a glider.

Opinion

gear up landing

Do Crash Videos Make Us Safer Pilots?

Do you really need a YouTube expert to remind you of the dangers of flying into known icing conditions? How about thunderstorms? Flying at night over mountainous terrain in hard IMC? Yeah, I didn’t think so. In fact, if you read the comments section of a lot of these videos (please don’t read the comments section), you’ll find that there are more non-pilots than real ones. They either found the video out of morbid curiosity, or they just got lost (hey, it happens).

Anticipation

There are many riddles to the human brain, and they are mostly borne from experience. It is more the Lamarckian trait rather than the Darwinian trait. Nothing is baked in except when it is through experience. We address life through the lens of our living. We catalogue our experiences inside the small molecules of proteins in our brain. Some from our childhood stick permanently, albeit with embellishments.

I Learned About Flying from Him

Whenever someone asks me about learning to fly, I always tell them this. Find a small country airport with no tower. Find an old taildragger to train in, a Cub or a Champ. But more importantly, find an old instructor, preferably one who wears a checked shirt and a trucker hat (suspenders optional), who has most likely forgotten more about how to fly an airplane than most of us will ever know.

More Articles

I Can’t Believe I Did That

Learn from the mistakes of others

Technique

Improve your flying skills

Go Or No Go

Test your weather decision-making

Young Pilots

The next generation writes

Friday Photo

Unforgettable cockpit views

I Was There

Sharing pilot stories