Nine things I know about flying in Iowa

The “field of dreams” from the Kevin Costner movie is located near Dyersville, Iowa, and it's worth a circle or two if you are flying over. However, if you are antique airplane enthusiast you know that Iowa’s real field of dreams is Antique Airfield in Blakesburg. Antique Airfield is home of the Antique Airplane Association, founded by Robert Taylor in 1953 and the AirPower Museum.
Cloud map

From the archives: Langewiesche on the weather revolution that mostly happened

Datalink weather has made flying both easier and safer. If you don't believe that, read this fascinating article from 70 years ago. Legendary author Wolfgang Langewiesche explains why the weather information pilots had in 1949 was so limited, and what could be done to improve the situation. Many of his wish list items have become a reality.
Mojave boneyard

My visit to an aircraft boneyard

It was supposed to be a routine training flight. You know, the standard stuff. Pre-flight the plane, contact Santa Monica ground and tower controllers without sounding like a rank amateur, get clearance and transition through the Burbank airspace. I was even prepared for some light turbulence over the San Gabriel mountain range. I wasn't at all prepared for the emotional turbulence.

Friday Photo: Monument Valley

It looks like a setting for a Western - because it is. The sandstone buttes of Monument Valley, on the border between Arizona and Utah, appear in many famous movies but they are even better in person. Richard Garnett shares a photo of the otherworldly scene in this Friday Photo, taken from a Piper Archer during a cross-country training flight.
Sailboat

Towing a Beaver under sail

A round-engine float plane dropped through a hole in a thick, low overcast to land, banging and clattering on choppy San Francisco Bay. It coasted to a stop a quarter mile dead-ahead of our Lapworth 40 sloop. We kept driving her, rail-down, hard on the wind, and quickly closed with the aircraft, a bit concerned.
Clouds off wing

The discipline to say no

The most famous decision pilots make happens before we even get airborne: to go or not to go? But after a busy summer of flying, I have learned that this is actually one of the easiest decisions in aviation. Saying “no” may be stressful when you’re on the ground, desperate to fly, but it’s much harder once you’re in the air. Call it plan continuation bias or get-there-itis; whatever the name, it is a worthy opponent.
Flight instruction

Fly like a professional? Yes, we can and should!

Most of us are not commercial pilots nor do we fly as our profession, so it would be very easy to immediately move to the next article in Air Facts thinking this article doesn’t apply to us. I would argue that flying like a professional does matter. I want to encourage you to approach your flying with the attitude of a professional.

Friday Photo: a great-looking panel

For Vini Khurana, checking out in his first airplane was a dream come true. He took this photo on a training flight and it shows a stunning view. The Pipistrel Virus is packed with Dynon avionics that light up the panel, but the view out the front window isn't bad either.

Nine things I know about flying in Wisconsin

Wisconsin is my adopted summer home state and the place where I do most of my fun flying. No, I'm not crazy; I head to Florida when snow, cold temps and ice fishing become the norm. Returning just before Memorial Day allows me the advantage of enjoying the best of both worlds. I like to say that I live in paradise... but in two widely disparate states.

Reader question: in what year did you first solo and what was the airplane?

The first solo - a red letter day in the life of a pilot. For most of us, that event is permanently etched in our memory. We can remember the airplane, hear the radio calls, and feel the relief and excitement when it was over. So this month we want to know what year you completed your first solo, and what the airplane was.
Mooney

How many second chances do you get?

We thought our most exciting memories were behind us. Everything was going great; the sun was about to set and, in an instant, we lost everything but the motor. No radios. No lights. No electrical instruments. And no ideas – yet. We got through the checklist and decided we had lost our alternator.

Friday Photo: Rocky Mountain National Park

Rocky Mountain National Park is a stunning 265,000 acre park in northern Colorado, famous for the Trail Ridge Road and its spectacular vistas. In this Friday Photo, Daniel Hesselius shares his unique view of the park, one that's even better than the Trail Ridge Road. He took this photo from the left seat of his Baron as he cruised back to Denver in clear skies.
Route to Russia

VFR to Russia? No problem!

This past July, we joined the Alaska Airmen Association and Circumpolar Expeditions on a group flight from Nome, Alaska, to Provideniya, Russia. The trip served two purposes: one as a goodwill mission to the Chukotka region of Russia and the other to keep the route between Nome and Provideniya open.
Griswold Airport

Read those NOTAMs!

We cruised on down to the Long Island Sound shoreline to shoot the VOR-A approach into Griswold Airport (now closed). Griswold was private, but nothing said we couldn’t shoot a low approach. Local scuttlebutt alleged that a Griswold family owned the airport and that they were “crazy.”
Pilot in Cessna

Volare: the family circle of fliers

Helen Keller said, “Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing.” Most who live by those words are fliers, in one way or another. Try to think of an avocation, a passion, an adventure, that doesn’t involve the release of a person or object from gravity’s surly bonds. They know the moment of flight where the daring adventure of life is attained.

Friday Photo: Isla Palomino

Sometimes everything comes together: a high wing airplane, a beautiful Caribbean island, and a friend to share the flight with. That's what Reinaldo Marquez shares in this Friday Photo, and it looks pretty good to us. The view is of Isla Palomino beach, on the southern edge of a small island just off the coast of Puerto Rico.
airline pilots

When pilots have too much experience

As pilots we spend our flying careers amassing hours of experience. Our skill and competence, and qualification for new ratings, and certainly for flying jobs, is largely based on our hours of logged experience. But when does a pilot have too much experience? In other words, when do the number of years logged since birth matter more than the number of hours in the logbook?
Cessna 210

Omaha to Tel Aviv in a Cessna 210

Jim and I talked further about ferry procedures, the probable route and the likely departure date. I was grateful then, when at the end of our lunch, he agreed to accompany me on the trip. I had about two thousand hours of over-water time by then, but all of it was with four engines at high altitude.

Go or No Go: heading home on Friday afternoon

At the end of a long week of work with a customer in northwest Arkansas, it's time to fly home for a relaxing weekend with the family. The skies are cloudy as you drive to the airport, but the weather looks good overall. Read the weather reports below, then tell us if you would fly this trip.
787 cockpit

Manual override and Occam’s razor

What if there were an easier way to revert to manual control? To remove the so-called “envelope protection” algorithms built into modern flight control systems. We’ve all heard the adage: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. But can you really aviate when control inputs are analyzed thousands of times a second and then spit out to the control surfaces?