Freedom to the Form

I’ve given a lot of people their first flight. Seeing things as they are, from the air, is fundamentally optimistic. People tell me it’s transcendent because it allows them to see the day-to-day rat race in a different way. The transcendence of seeing your neighborhood or your city from six thousand feet is the spiritual opposite of living in forms.
Corsair V8

The Corsair C172-V8 Experiment Update #3—Reader’s Suggestions

Unfortunately, it became clear that FAA leadership had no interest in supporting such a solution—whether as an experimental conversion for certified airframes or via a STC (a certification that would allow owners to replace their original engine with ours on certified aircraft)—regardless of the potential benefits.
atlas air b767

Panic, and How To Not

Reading the accident reports where pilots panic and make fatal mistakes is helpful.  But—the most helpful thing to do—for me, anyway—to ward off panic and build flying confidence is train, train, train.  Drill, baby, drill.  Flashcards and chair-flying and flying are my friends.

The Flying Sport

What’s not obvious to a lot of non-pilot folk is that flying is one of the few passions you absolutely must do regularly just to safely do it. Think about that for a second:  unlike other modes of transportation, you can stop driving for several months, even years, and still be able to get back into a vehicle with little to no training. Flying isn’t like that.

What NTSB Reports Say About Impossible Turns and AOA (Part II)

Because successful impossible turns are not accidents and not reportable to the NTSB, none showed up in the NTSB data. However, the very embarrassing rhetorical question is, how did all those past impossible turns succeed when none of those aircraft had a visual AOA indicator? Given the rarity of visual AOA indicators in recent years, it’s a safe bet that visual AOA indicators would not have been installed in any, or hardly any, of those airplanes.

What NTSB Reports Say About Impossible Turns and AOA (Part I)

There is an impressive surge of AOA rhetoric—“lifesaving,” “correct,” “optimum”—but such language can be misleading. “Correct” and “optimum” may fit the context of the speaker but not necessarily apply to the situations of the listener, who may be considering other flight operations, or having to deal with real world scenarios. While the decision on where to expend safety resources will vary from pilot to pilot, the NTSB reports of this study do not support visual AOA indicators for impossible turns as a silver bullet to address overall safety issues.
cruise flight

Cruise Checklist, Complete?

Monitoring your engine gauges is sort of a systems-level skill which is part of every primary curriculum. But most of the focus is on takeoff; hopefully, you’ve been taught to stare at the gauges when you line up on the runway in case you must abort because one of them doesn’t look right. Yet just because your engine is acting normally on takeoff doesn’t guarantee it will in flight, right?
New Cessna 172

So maybe there was a real purpose in flying that day

After I was current again and reasonably proficient, the 16-year-old son of some friends asked if he could go up with me.  I said he could, but only if his parents were very clear as to my experience, the record of the flying club, the kind of plane we’d be flying, Vx, Vy, everything.  They gave an enthusiastic thumbs up and we had a great flight.
Windsock

Wind is More than a Number

Those little hills made for fiendish turbulence down low. The lower I got, the worse it became. I’m stubborn and I kept thinking it’s just 20 knots, and I’m a CFI (beating chest). Until I was porpoising down the runway like a first-time student. I went around the pattern a few times but finally got a clue and decided to go elsewhere.
V-tail Bonanza

Burning Man for Builders

Society will always tell us there’s no such thing as safe enough. We will add more and more sensors, cameras and lidar to things that drive themselves, while news headlines rage of man failing machine, machine failing man. We put in airbags and then a switch to deactivate them.
Airplane off runway

Survival gear after the crash…hmm

Or might it be the case that the pilot–you, for example—has mental and cognitive skills degraded by pain after the crash? And maybe all those survival tools and toys that were so appealing and easy to evaluate on a bright Saturday morning are in the moment hard to use, hard to get open from the packaging, or even forgotten?

Our Overton Window

ROP leads to higher intra-cylinder pressures (ICPs) and higher heat production. ROP also uses extra fuel, hence more unburned gasses and metals, given the minor imperfection in the state of metallurgy and the myriad of moving parts soaked in that heat which, over time, might not handle this hot onslaught leading to deformation. Conversely, as you go LOP, the CHTs come down due to more complete combustion.
cowling

How stress and anxiety affect pilots

"I read the news today, oh boy!" You can almost hear the drumbeat behind those lyrics by Lennon and McCartney. And yet it was! I did read the news today and in my mind the exclamation of “oh boy!” followed swiftly. An airline pilot was…
Legend Cub

The Last Pilot

On the last base to final turn, the Last Pilot will make one final radio call and touch down on the old grass strip and taxi to the barn, alone in their thoughts.  After the engine is clicked off and The Last Pilot coasts to a stop, the windshield will be dutifully wiped clean, as will the leading edges.  The plane will be pushed into the barn, and the Last Pilot will hang the key on the hook for the final time.
diamond da40

It’s Time To Get High

And what altitude did I fly the entire coast of Connecticut? That’s right, 1,500 feet. It gets better. Because for whatever reason, New York Approach wouldn’t negotiate with Bridgeport’s Tower (KBDR) for the transition, I was asked to avoid KBDR’s Class Delta airspace altogether. And I did. At, you guessed it, 1,500 feet. Over the water. Go me.

The “C” in PIC

When I first started my primary training, my CFI was mainly focused on developing my “P-Skills”–learning to actually fly the airplane. But once I got the physical act of flying down, my training slowly transitioned into developing my “C” ones. These skills included recognizing and dealing with emergencies, how to communicate on the radio effectively, and probably the most important one of all, how to see and avoid.
cessna cardinal

Rubber bands – the reason I quit

My landings were getting worse and worse. Probably depth perception changes, but extremely frustrating. I was mentoring two young people who were vitally interested in flying by letting them fly from the right seat. How embarrassing that I couldn’t score a 9 or 10 on each landing. As we know, landing is a combination of hand/eye coordination and muscle memory. One of those was slipping away.
Pilot in Cessna 182

The Zen of IFR

How can an average GA pilot like me who flies around a hundred hours a year stay proficient? The answer is quite simple (well, maybe): I incorporate some aspect of IFR flying into every single flight. Every single one. That means hand flying to within or better ACS standards.
Low approach

Diversity: The Double-Edged Sword of General Aviation

It turns out that there is no legal requirement for the instructor to be familiar with the avionics being presented for the IPC.  Beyond flight time in the make and model of aircraft flown, it's entirely up to you, the pilot, to be able to manipulate the panel to accomplish the tasks required to complete the flight(s).

Take a step back

Flying an aircraft is a disciplined endeavor that requires care and caution. It requires us to focus and then to let our eyes gaze over the whole aircraft. It is like admiring the intricacies of a Rembrandt painting from near and the magic from afar. The majesty and beauty and craft and perfection seen from two different perspectives.