When you’re practicing aerobatics, it helps to have a good visual reference for your maneuvers. Santiago Arbelaez found the perfect one on a flight in his RV-4 – a vivid rainbow off the right wing. Here’s hoping 2019 brings you many spectacular views like this from the cockpit.
2019 is just around the corner, and many pilots take the time to make a flying resolution for the new year. We’d like to hear from you – what’s your aviation goal for 2019? Do you want to fly more, add a rating, get current, check out in a new airplane, or maybe fly to Oshkosh? Add your comment below – and be sure to tell us how you plan to keep yourself honest.
Most airline flights involve simply moving people and things from point A to point B, but sometimes an airline pilot gets a view of the human side. In this touching article by Len Morgan, the legendary pilot and authro shares a memorable flight that shows how powerful air travel can be and the lives it can connect. This article originally appeared in the November 1956 edition of Air Facts.
My loving wife let me implement “my Retirement Plan” a little early and purchase this airplane this past fall. I raised two US Marines, hence the USMC mascot – and yes Rock has been flying as well for the past 8 years! I will be offering seaplane instruction soon.
The aircraft started bouncing around pitching up and down. I asked the student what he was doing. He responded, “I can’t control the plane!” I immediately took over and, looking around, I noticed that the left elevator was flapping up and down uncontrollably.
During the holiday season of 1968, in an isolated Pennsylvania community, Allegheny Airlines’ professionalism, safety culture and luck would abandon the airline to a sequence of events no fiction writer could invent. And the echo of those tragedies continues to resonate a half century later.
In aviation, a newly minted private pilot is given some of the same responsibilities and authorizations shared by their 30,000 hour ATP counterparts. I see many similarities to the newly graduated surgeon working among his more seasoned peers with 20 years of experience and thousands of operations under their belts.
The historic Chateau de Chantilly is just 30 miles north of Paris, but looks like a time capsule from the 19th century. Philippe Platek was flying over it on a beautiful day when he took this photo from his Tecnam P-2008JC. It shows the Grand Chateau and the stunning formal gardens. The perfect flight for a general aviation airplane.
Everything looked perfect – too perfect as it turned out. I kept expecting Bob to advance the throttle (or tell me to) so we could fly out of there, but instead we kept getting lower, flying a final approach to the off-airport landing spot. I couldn’t quite believe it when Bob, instead of applying power and initiating the go-around, started a landing flare!
It’s when you start to plan longer trips, over several hours or several days, that you develop a deeper understanding of how to navigate the atmosphere. And for me there are two principles that guide my thinking on these journeys: the weather will always change; and, it’s always scarier on the computer screen!
I was particularly interested to see an event titled “Porepunkah Movie Night” advertised in a magazine. Porepunkah is a beautiful location in the Victorian Alps, and I remembered flying in there once before. It is a grass airstrip of about 770 metres, surrounded by mountains.
The weak sun of October had not completely removed the fog in the south of the Black Forest and over Switzerland. The Alps were sticking out of the cloud layer in the South. The air was smooth at FL090. I was crossing the arrival sectors of Zurich and the controllers had given me the most direct route that I could dream of.
It was a cold February day when I decided that we would fly our 1994 Mooney M20R to Havana, Cuba. Restrictions for U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba had recently been lifted. The island was only 90 miles from Key West. We had flown our Mooney to the Out Islands of the Bahamas in the past. The only problem was that my wife did not want to go.
As social media and cable TV deteriorate into ill-informed shouting matches, I find myself reading more and more books. And as a book lover, Christmas means making my list and distributing it to family and friends. So in the spirit of the holidays I’ll offer my list of great aviation books.
As I flew alone over the river near Fillmore, California, I noticed a really big area of sand that had been scoured flat and level by that high water. It was white, obvious and very clean looking, and the water was long gone. This is when it occurred to me that a guy might just be able to land on it in a Champ with big tires.
The old saying reminds us that behind every cloud there’s a silver lining. Most pilots know that behind every line of summer showers, there’s a rainbow. Ed Loxterkamp was in the perfect position to capture this beautiful sight when he was flying home from EAA AirVenture in his Piper Arrow.
“If you don’t like the weather in the Midwest, wait 30 minutes,” they say. I guess there is some truth in that, a truth that I now consider to be a substantial part of my flight preparations. In early summer 2017, I was still a student pilot, preparing for the 150 NM cross country flight, which was one of the last things I had to cross off my list for meeting the requirements for taking the private pilot checkride.
Earth Rounders currently document 231 single-engine circumnavigations by more than one pilot and 124 solo circumnavigations. The range of single-engine airplanes that have made circumnavigations is amazing: Long EZs, RVs, a Stearman, a Searey. Unbelievable! Of course Mooneys, Bonanzas, Pipers, several Cessna 182s and all kinds of homebuilts have made the trip.
It was clear, it was fresh with only a faint odor of exhaust from the nearby Braniff jet’s APU to remind us there were easier ways to fly for a living. Over there was hot coffee, hostesses, snacks from the galley. Over here, we could see our breath in the cabin. When will I be warm while flying airplanes? Not soon, I knew.
Getting the perfect nighttime photo is part skill and part timing. Glenn Ford had both for this fantastic shot of Nashville, Tennessee. The high wing of his Cessna 172 left a sprawling view of the lights that make “Music City USA” so vibrant.
