RAAF Sabre

Not your typical bombing run

Fighter aircraft are designed and built to be fighting machines. The pilots who fly them are highly skilled in delivering many different weapons: bombs, rockets, missiles, 30 mm cannon… but killing was not the aim when we bombed a Northern territory airport in the early 1960s. As the wingman in a fighter pair for this mission, it was an experience I have held in my memory for decades.

The cellphone 27 approach into Helena

At 30 miles east of LWT, as I pressed the push-to-talk button to report our position, all the lights on the panel went dark. I reached for the avionics toggle switch. It was very hot and the switch showed no resistance when I moved it up or down. My brother was busy enjoying the scenery, including the mountains in the distance which towered above us.
US airspace

Who controls the navigable airspace?

There were two theories on the status of airspace for international air navigation. One argued for freedom of airspace much like the freedom of the seas, by which the countries underlying the airspace exercised no sovereignty in the airspace and flight was free. The other argued that the airspace above national territories was not free, but subject to the sovereignty of the underlying country.

Friday Photo: backcountry flying in a Super Cub

When Jody Kochansky signed up for a course at McCall Mountain Canyon Flying School in Idaho, he knew he would learn a lot. And learn he did. As he says, "I'm a better pilot for the experience!" Along the way, he captured this beautiful backcountry scene, with Loon Creek winding its way through the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. The picture is made complete by the yellow Super Cub cowl.
Hurricane damage

It was a smooth day until that one big bounce

After eight days on the ground working on behalf of a national non-profit emergency services group running one of their Points of Distribution sites in Wilmington, North Carolina, I was ready for some air time. Lucky for me, one of the final air missions of Hurricane Florence was on the books for the following day and they were in need of a mission pilot.
Collins family

I’ve got connections

What is aviation, in a word? Many writers have tried to answer that question, and the word mentioned most often is freedom. Aviation sets you free, whether it’s freedom from the ground-bound view of the world or freedom from everyday worries. That’s certainly true, but I’d like to offer another nominee, even if it’s not as poetic: connection.
T-28 on carrier

Doing it the old school way: carrier qualification in the 1950s and 60s

In the spring of 1965, my turn came to hit the boat in the T-28C, a burly trainer with a 1425 horsepower two-stage supercharged R1820-86 radial engine and performance comparable to World War II fighters. Up to that point, flying T-34Bs and T-28Bs, we had mastered aerobatics, instrument flying, two and four plane formation and night flying.

Friday Photo: sunrise over a Cirrus wing

Sometimes, Mother Nature knows best. After evening storms delayed Salim Helou's flight home until the next morning, the sun made a grand appearance over the co-pilot's wing. The Cirrus SR22 meant Salim made it to work on time, but the view was the real prize.
Matanuska River

Poor planning, poor choices, and poor airmanship

I could see that the weather lifted just beyond the big rock that held the radio tower located off to my left and not far ahead. I could see that I would have about 50 feet between the cloud deck and the highway there, enough room to skirt the rock and fly into better weather. So I just took it...
F-15

Fighting the war on drugs in the Air Force

My first Counter Drug (aka CD) operation involved deploying F-15s to Howard AFB in Panama. Under the auspices of the USAF’s 12th Air Force, we took four F-15Bs down south to provide augmented air surveillance in the Caribbean as part of the grand plan to interdict drug running out of Colombia up in to Mexico and points north.
Runway lights at night

How spatial disorientation can trap pilots

My student Max, like many before and after him, could just not bring himself to believe that he could not fly the airplane by the seat of his pants without visual references outside the cockpit in spite of instruction and all the materials he had read about spatial disorientation and vertigo.

Friday Photo: Phoenix sunset

Photographers call it the golden hour for a reason. As this Friday Photo from Kimberly Prodan shows, the time just before night falls is utterly amazing - especially from an airplane. This photo captures the emerging lights of Phoenix below, while the sun's fading light paints the horizon.
Cherokee 140

The day I almost didn’t take off

As I advanced the throttle, the acceleration on takeoff was less than I thought it should be, but I justified this with the thought it was a 140 and not the 180. No alarms were going off in my mind yet. What could go wrong with almost 760 lbs of people and full fuel?
Cirrus SR22T

Flying is no joke

As he taxied to “line up and wait,” something was amiss. Yet he and I both persevered in our thoughts of better flight to come. Shattered easily by the slipping nose wheel as the throttle was advanced, I pushed the right rudder a bit and felt the resistance from his feet, locked in a state of motionless silence. He must have felt it, for he looked over at me with a quizzical look.
Tower controller

The case against practicing in the pattern

The title is a misnomer, but if I were to put in the actual title it would be: As important as practice in the pattern is, it doesn't always prepare you for what can happen before and after getting cleared to land, and practice approaching from beyond the pattern is important also.

Friday Photo: Colorado mountains

A cool, clear day in the mountains of Colorado is hard to beat. As Greg Chestnut shows in this photo, it's even better with a high wing airplane. He took this photo while flying his Cessna 182 to Las Vegas, as he passed over the Uncompahgre Wilderness Area near Telluride.
Lake Placid

Lake Placid: anything but

I ran through the before landing checks from the laminated checklist card and right about then Laura announced she had the field in sight. Then a bump. Not a vertical bump one would expect on a warm summer day, but a fairly stiff bump with a bit of roll. “No big deal,” I thought.
Engine stopped in a Cessna

The bad news and good news about engine failures

You’ve probably said it to a nervous passenger: “Don’t worry, airplane engines almost never quit.” It's only in World War II movies that engines cough and pilots have to save the day, right? This is mostly true for turbine engines, which have a stunningly good reliability record. Unfortunately, it’s far less true for piston engines.

Video tip: IFR flight plans, fact and fiction

Filing a flight plan is an important part of any IFR trip, but just because you put something down in black and white does not mean you have to fly it. As this video tip shows, some parts of the flight plan are fact, and some are probably fiction - keeping them straight is essential for safe flying. Just because you filed a certain alternate airport, or a specific altitude, does not mean you have to fly that if conditions change.
Cruise ship

Why airline pilot schedules and cruises don’t mix

There appeared to be five days on the itinerary for our four-day cruise. Counting the days… recounting them… uh oh. Too many days. We are now in the middle of the ocean, with no communication capability whatsoever, and had no way of telling our new company that we simply could not make it back for work the next week.