Debate: has the iPad made pilots safer?

The iPad, originally dismissed as a novelty, has now become an essential part of many pilots' flight bags, whether student pilot or airline pro. But have all these features actually made flying safer?

Managing risk in flying: cognitive traps!

The most critical skill in aviation safety is making good decisions, both before flight when time is plentiful and in flight when circumstances change and we may be rushed. The ability to generate and decide between diverse options (often with incomplete information and in the crunch) is essential to mitigate risk and achieve a safe outcome.

Just one of those days

I signed up for an early January Angel Flight mission in my Cessna P210 turboprop conversion. The morning of the flight, I stepped out at 0530 for my usual run and found mist and drizzle. Uh oh. This is not a good sign.

Go or No Go: Texas storms

After spending a nice Easter weekend at home, tonight you'll be flying from Wichita Falls, TX (CWC) to Wichita, KS (ICT) for a presentation at a big conference. The only question is (as usual), will the weather cooperate?

AvGeek is the worst buzzword ever and is damaging aviation

If you’ve ever tweeted the hashtag #avgeek, I want to you to exit your World of Warcraft game, put on some pants, slowly climb those steep, dark stairs out of your mom’s basement and quickly make your way to the nearest video store and pick up a VHS copy of The Right Stuff.
Cessna Skycatcher

The Skycatcher’s death proves the LSA rule is a failure

Light Sport Aircraft entered the world with high--probably absurd--expectations. These lighter weight, lower cost airplanes allow pilots to fly without a medical certificate, and were supposed to introduce a new generation to the glories of personal aviation. What happened?

Enter nausea – a Pitts introduction

It took better than 2 hours for my stomach to finally relocate to where it was supposed to be in my body. Up until that point I’m fairly certain it was just trying out new locations to see how it liked them. This, of course, is after my first aerobatic training flight in Sunquest Aviation’s Pitts S2A.

Searching… for a lost airliner and others

I don’t think that I believed I would ever see a search as long, expensive, and detailed as the one for the Malaysian 777. I did, though, in my time in the business, have some interesting experiences related to searching for lost airplanes.

I have my license – now what?

Now I'm a private pilot, and I’m just not sure what to do or where to go now. Do I keep adding ratings? A tailwheel endorsement would be cool for sure, but for what purpose? Maybe now that I’ve accomplished my “lifelong dream” there is a bit of a hangover associated?
RCAF T-33

Heroes and goats

I immediately reduced the throttle to idle, thinking that I’d had a compressor stall; this action was followed shortly by a thought process of: “Now, let me see: I’m forty-five degrees nose up with sixty degrees of bank and I’ve just pulled off any power which might be remaining and the speed is starting to fall. ” Even without the benefit of higher education, I knew this was not good.
Cessna 150 flying

Some things are better done without an audience

The little Cessna heaved a surrendering sigh as if air were being forced out of a Tupperware bowl. The stall-warning horn began its reedy squall as the nose went up higher and higher. The world went sideways in a multi-colored blur. Then it became deathly quiet; all sound curiously vanished.

A family affair… finally

It is Sunday afternoon, I have the two kids strapped into the Mooney and I am about to push the throttle forward… but WAIT, before we go there, we need to take a quick jump back in time, to 2001.

We did something to the altitude

When my friend Paul had mentioned a club at Republic Airport where I fly that was renting 2007 C172s with the G1000 panel, I jumped at the idea. I was previously flying a 2003 Piper Archer with 2 Garmin 430s and while I love the Archer, the club where I rented was very expensive, and I was excited to “step up” to the newer system.

The error chain in action: Pilatus crash at Butte

According to Hemingway, a man goes bankrupt gradually, then suddenly. The same could be said of the way pilots crash airplanes: a series of small mistakes slowly build up until a final mistake suddenly ends the flight. A 2009 Pilatus PC-12 accident in Montana is a tragic example.

Recollections of EAA Founder Paul Poberezny

I knew Paul Poberezny well from the early 1980s, having been introduced to him by a non-pilot colleague at Mayo Clinic, where I was on the medical staff. Paul became a friend whom I could call at any time, including nights and weekends, and expect a warm response. I think he had similar relationships with countless others.
Colgan crash

A double tragedy: Colgan Air Flight 3407

The crash of a DHC-8-400 (Q400) on approach to Buffalo, N. Y. brought on the all-time most egregious case of smoke and flames rulemaking by the FAA. It was dictated by Congress, it makes no sense, and it will have a lasting deleterious effect on air service to smaller cities and on airline flying as a profession.

Flaps anyone? Strange things can happen

I am a student pilot with 42 hours of flying time and am just getting ready for my flight exam. On Sunday I was practicing touch-and-goes and after my first landing, I retracted the flaps, added power and started to climb out. I immediately noticed that my climb rate was lower than normal.
1958 Skylane

From the archives: Journey to Wichita

One of the first articles published on Air Facts when we relaunched in 2011 was Rob Buck's delightful trip down memory lane, telling the story of a boyhood flight to Wichita with his father (legendary pilot Bob Buck). Here, we share the other side of the story: Bob Buck's account of this same flight, as told in the April 1958 edition of Air Facts.

Malaysia 370 is not the first: Flying Tigers 739 was

We have been inundated by speculation on the missing Malaysian 777 but nowhere have I seen the event connected to another eerily similar event from over 50 years ago, on March 14, 1962 to be precise.

Building a career by believing in your dream

In the first article from our "Young Guns" series, meet Andrea Tomaselli, a young pilot from Venezuela who followed his dreams and made captain on the MD-11 at just 27. He shares his story and what he learned about succeeding in a turbulent aviation industry.