Flying is not an extreme sport – time to get serious about safety

We complain loudly about the cost of flying - and it is expensive. We complain about the complexity of flying and the FAA's regulations - and they are too complicated. But the topic that comes up most often when I talk to prospective pilots is safety.

My tailwheel transition story, so far

I'm a recently-minted private pilot with about 70 hours, and a little over 3 hours into tailwheel endorsement training. Interestingly enough, the tailwheel endorsement has been my big goal, perhaps even more so than the PPL! But there is an order to things, and these days the PPL checkride is mostly tailored to the Cessna 172.

Where is your checklist? Make your own

Despite the obvious benefits of using checklists, many pilots fail to recognize the real cognitive value of checklists lies in the process of creating them. One of my favorite activities when purchasing or transitioning to a different light aircraft is creating my set of checklists for it. Having completed six now, I have a pretty good idea of the process.

Phenom jet v. house – everyone loses in terrible tragedy

A Phenom 100 light jet, flown single-pilot by its owner, a physician and businessman, crashed into three houses when on final approach to runway 14 at Montgomery County Airpark. That this is a PR disaster for general aviation and for that airport is an understatement. It would be hard to think of anything more tragic.

10 questions for AOPA’s George Perry

The new leader of AOPA's Air Safety Institute, George Perry, comes to the job with a diverse aviation background, including 20 years as a US Navy fighter pilot. He's no stranger to general aviation though, from learning to fly as a teenager to owning a Mooney. We spoke to Perry about his approach to safety and his hopes for general aviation's future.

Those photo missions – smile!

Having a photo mission go as planned and result in a formation flight with another airplane (or two or three) as the sun rose or set put the participants in a place of serene beauty and it was rewarding to share that with our readers and viewers. It was a thought that I often had, but on some of those flights I knew I had the best job in the world.

Night flight

It had been one of those perfect fall days, a day when you could see forever. The light had a clarity one only sees in the fall, and then only rarely. It was the kind of light that painters dream of. The night was still, without even the whisper of a breeze.

Using historical weather data to learn

As pilots, we spend a lot of time reviewing the weather before a flight--you might even say some pilots obsess about it. But very few pilots spend any time looking at the weather after a flight. That's a shame, because there's much to learn from a post-flight analysis and there are some new tools that make it quite easy.

Shifting snow and the point of no return

So I taxied to the threshold following a “Follow Me” jeep as I could not see the taxiway. Meanwhile my Flight Commander went to the tower to watch. Maybe he expected a spectacle – but as it happened he gave me good advice and by all accounts he got a spectacle too!

The trip to Dong Den Mountain

Luxury hotels line the idyllic beach today. Forty-eight years ago, it was a bare sugar white expanse of sand and surf and the site of our crude Marine Corps helicopter base known as Marble Mountain Air Facility just east of Da Nang by the South China Sea. Our Marine CH-46 helicopter squadron had flown ashore ten days earlier.

An evening alone

“Lights, camera, action!” I recite to no one but me. It’s my final mantra before takeoff in my Cavalier. Nav and strobe lights on, transponder to ALT, and power up to go. Gladys, my instructor, taught me that.

A Thanksgiving cross-country adventure

I was excited at the opportunity to complete a real cross-country trip with my wife to visit family in Tennessee for the Thanksgiving holiday. For weeks prior to the trip, I passed the time planning the flight and picking out the best fuel stops. The plan was finally set. Preflight inspection now complete, we were ready to fly!

Is the ADS-B glass half full?

Over the past 25 years, pilots have complained about three different transponder rules: Mode C, then Mode S and now ADS-B. Is the FAA really this incompetent or do pilots just like to gripe? As usual, the answer is a little bit of both. I say the ADS-B glass is half full.

Four Merlins to Momote

In this current era of over-regulation, it may seem, understandably to anyone reading this story now, that we were a bunch of over-enthusiastic young men with little sense of professional responsibility. But it was another time and things were different then. For this ancient airman, they were the good old days and I mourn their passing.

Why I bought a Pig!

In my last article I told you what it took to get my wife in the air. As much as that short flight over La Jolla (San Diego) was fun, the goal was always, and forever will be, to use the airplane for family flying. So after years of airport hopping, $100 burger runs (by myself I might add), and oh so many touch and goes, it was time to take the family on a real trip.

Don’t take anything for granted!

Since I began taking flying lessons, about 5 years ago, our dream was to fly to Fort Collins. I mean, after endlessly flying over the featureless flatlands of the Midwest, how cool to see the freakin’ Rocky Mountains filling your windshield!

From the archives: Dick Collins on airline vs. GA flying

In our latest trip through the Air Facts archives, we discovered this gem from the April 1965 issue. Here, a young Richard Collins considers the advantages and disadvantages of traveling on the airlines versus flying oneself by light airplane. Is it really worth it to fly instead of ride? Nearly 50 years later, many pilots are still asking the question--Collins answers it definitively.

Welcome to the war

In March 1967, as I finished my first year as a draftee in the Army, I kissed my wife good-bye in Tulsa and flew to San Francisco to go to war. At Travis, we boarded a chartered DC-8 airliner for the flight to Vietnam.

Those pilot reports – of the magazine variety

Over my 50 years in the print magazine business I would estimate that I wrote at least 300 pilot report features plus a lot of other airplane coverage in columns. I started to go back and count exactly how many there were but decided that wouldn’t be any fun. Instead, I’ll tell you about some that were different enough for me to vividly remember.

No time for prayer: surviving catastrophic engine failure

Before the engine blew, it was making a repetitive cyclical type noise; it wasn’t high pitched, it was kind of like the sound of a card flapping on a set of bicycle spokes, going fairly rapidly, getting painfully louder and louder to the point it seemed like my headset was not muffling the noise at all as the big end of the number 2 rod broke and the piston was beaten against the crank case.