Challenger

There was no checklist for this one…

I have been extremely fortunate throughout my aviation career to have had the opportunity to perform acceptance flights and deliver multiple types of aircraft. As expected, acceptance flights had the most major and minor mechanical issues. Once the airplanes were delivered, the airplanes were for the most part mechanically clean and reliable. Except for one.

Friday Photo: feet wet

There's a moment when you transition from flying over land to flying over water ("feet wet") when your whole view changes. That's the view Agustin Rubiños captures in this Friday Photo, as his Cessna 172 cruised over the beaches in Claromeco, Argentina.
Indo-Pakistani war

Flying helicopters in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971

We had enough fuel to do three trips each, but by the time I was going for my third trip it was already dark. In addition, the Pakistani army had seen the helicopters and started surrounding the field we were landing in. They were firing at us as we came in to land. On my third flight I could see hundreds of tracer bullets coming towards us from all directions.
Sustainable fuel

Sustainable aviation and the trouble with high performance airplanes

For many environmental activists, politicians, and even public company CEOs, the goal is not to limit the damage but to achieve net zero emissions. This campaign is starting to achieve real results: the European Union is expected to ban internal combustion engines in new cars by 2035. So whether you think climate change is an existential threat or a hoax doesn’t really matter—it is a serious issue for the aviation industry, at least from a public relations standpoint.
CFI

Coming Full Circle—Finding Your True Calling

I became obsessed with the notion of doing something useful with aviation. I got involved with Angel Flight and the Young Eagles program but something still was missing. It occurred to me that becoming a CFI might very well fit that bill. After procrastinating for several years, I finally got it done in July of 2009. By then I had nearly 1200 hours or so in my logbook and I really thought quite highly of myself.

Great expectations: ADS-B traffic uplink

When ADS-B traffic uplink was announced, there were great expectations for what it could do to improve safety, specifically, to reduce mid-air and near mid-air collisions. After some years of flying with ADS-B traffic, my expectations have been, shall we say, down-sized. It’s nice to think that improvements are easy, but there are real world constraints.

Friday Photo: thunderstorms over Cambodia

Picking our way through thunderstorms at 10,000 MSL over Cambodia in the late fall of 1972. Or, has John Gillespie Magee, Jr. said it in High Flight, we "...chased the shouting wind along, and flung [our] eager craft through footless halls of air..."
Seaplane

Searching my past while flying over Moosehead Lake

The views from the plane were spectacular. This lake is forty miles long and quite wide, with many islands and mountains right down to the shore line. Moosehead’s shore is well populated with cottages and docks.  In the distance we could see several large mountains clearly including the famous Mount Katahdin, the end of the Appalachian Trail.
RV-14A on ramp

Sunrise to sunset: never stop learning

Anytime there are moments like this, I try to open up and turn on all of my senses and let it all sink in. The satisfying smell of the exhaust. The quiet hum of the propeller and engine working together. The screws you feel through the little foam pad you’re sitting on that are annoying, yet oddly comforting. All the colors of the sunset from the deepest of purples to the most majestic oranges.
C-5A Galaxy

Two churnin’ and two burnin’ – who’s the PIC?

We retracted gear and flaps and just before entering the overcast we slammed into a flight of Canada Geese, in classic “V” formation I assume—we never saw them. We sucked several of the large, 12-15 pound birds into the engines. Number one fire handle illuminated red. Numbers two and three engines began vibrating violently with rpm fluctuating 500-1000 revolutions.
Chart on iPad

Are IFR Approach Charts Obsolete?

Why did we as a crew, and even more critically a single pilot, spend valuable time reading from an approach chart information and functions that the FMS had accomplished automatically, and clearly displayed, with a single entry? Because the approach briefing from a chart is a leftover from the days when we had no other options to obtain the necessary information to fly an approach.

Friday Photo: Santa Paula

Learning to fly at CP Aviation at KSZP has been a trip. It feels like Santa Paula is what GA used to feel like in its heyday: one small runway, one taxiway, no tower. Nothing but Cessnas, Ercoupes, Stearmans, Citabrias. Life at SZP is simple. The core ethos? The pure love of flying.
VariEze

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a VariEze!

We married when I was in my 40s and he was in his 50s. From our home in Berkeley, he loved to go to air shows in San Jose and Watsonville. He then renewed his pilot’s license, rented Piper Cubs and we flew around California. His day job was teaching machine shop at the East Bay Skills Center in Oakland. One day he said, “I think I would like to build an airplane.” My clueless response was, “That’s nice.”
C-123 landing

Really short and really soft fields—flying C-123s in Vietnam

I was stationed in Saigon, Vietnam, with the 19th Air Commando Squadron flying C-123 aircraft. We achieved an extremely proficient operational ability in all aspects of flying the aircraft. We did this by operating the aircraft into and out of some of the most demanding landing sites imaginable. We landed on roads, fields, sidewalks (Song Be City), and runways made of grass, laterite, sod, clay, asphalt, and PSP steel planking.
BO105

Helicopter escapades in the Arctic

Feeling comfortable in helicopters requires an unswervable belief that various key parts such as rotors, gearbox, shafting, and blades will stay connected and keep rotating long enough to make it back to earth in one piece. I was fortunate enough to have this belief and to enjoy spending hundreds of amazing hours in many different helicopters. To top it off, I actually got paid for most of these experiences, using helicopters to support our Arctic sea ice research projects.
Oshkosh overhead

NotKosh—a year without AirVenture

Because Wittman Field stood empty and silent, the summer of 2020 deserves a name as well. I believe it is entirely appropriate to tag this particular part of the last week of July and first week of August 2020 as “NotKosh.” In 2020, possibly more than ever before, we needed Oshkosh.

Friday Photo: CJ sunset

Sunsets are always a favorite view for pilots, but sometimes the conditions are just right. In this beautiful Friday Photo, Phelps Lane shares a photo from the left seat of a Cessna Citation CJ1+ as he descended over New Orleans. The lights are glowing in the distance, the black sky fades to blue, then orange, then red—and you can almost see the curvature of the earth.
Husky

My pal Joe, ornery to the very end

Joe was an ornery sort, in life and in death too, as you will find out. I met Joe when I was just a little kid. He reminded me of a tough character from one of those men’s true adventure magazines so popular in the 1950s. You know, the type with cover art depicting a guy in ripped khakis fighting a lion with bare hands, while a blonde cowers behind a bush.
Cessna

My personal Guinness Book of Records

That book’s list of the longest of this or whatever of that prompted me to scroll through an ancient logbook, remembering our three-day adventure to fly a distance of 95 miles… I know, weird, huh? Well, that little hop from Sterling, Massachusetts, to Martha’s Vineyard gave me and my wife quite a different flight experience.
Cockpit simulator

Desktop Flight Simulation and COVID: how it helps, how it hinders

The coronavirus pandemic caused the flight school to close for several months and also imposed some funding issues on me. I am even at the point now where I have to repeat the theoretical exam, because it is more than three years since I passed it. However, whenever I go back to the cockpit, I feel right at home. I am convinced that flight simulation on desktop computers helped me to keep in a mental state of preparedness.