Preflight Briefing and Postlfight Debriefing Guidance

If briefings are not performed in a logical and standard way, critical items could be overlooked or deferred inappropriately. It can be tempting to forego or short-shrift the brief if crews routinely fly together and perhaps over a familiar route. Assumptions, complacency, and unchecked biases (including outcome and confirmation) have resulted in many close-calls and serious incidents.

Visual Angle of Attack Indicators and Systems Engineering Theory

If VAOAI is primary, then failure mode remedies must be determined, published, and trained. Pretty soon, the solution will come to pitch and power to determine approximate airspeed. Back when I gave primary instruction, I wouldn’t solo a student till they had an hour of pattern work with the airspeed indicator covered. They were terrified on the first approach, apprehensive on the second, and by the end of the hour, bored stiff. They were ready to handle an airspeed failure.

Flying and Maintaining Prewar Aeroncas: A Guide for Antique Aircraft Owners

The Stick Chief refers to the aircraft controls that employ a stick as opposed to a yoke. And why would anyone do that, you ask?  In the late 1930s, then President Rosevelt, put the country on a war footing and declared the US would need 25,000 pilots. He was informed by the Navy and Army Air Core that they had neither the aircraft, personnel nor facilities to undertake the effort. To that end, civilian flight schools were pressed into service with several military officers overseeing civilian flight instructors. This was the beginning of the cadet pilot program.  

Airshows and Fighter Jet Demos

Airshows can be small, at local airfields, or grand, like Chicago’s Waterfront extravaganza, Paris, or Farnborough, the aircraft can vary from small private aircraft, the sporty Putts and Yaks, to vintage ones, from WWI and WWII warbirds up to the teams, the Blues, the Birds, and Red Arrows.  They all capture young and old for different reasons.  The kids dream the old guys are also dreaming of the good days of yore.  I’ve done both.

A Life in Aviation: Building a Legacy Through Books and Artifacts

Rare are the folks associated with the aviation community who don’t collect, at one level or another, aviation related publications, photographs, and/or memorabilia. I would go so far as to call it a genetic aviation aberration; a built-in, irrepressible desire to own or simply possess “things” that connect us to the people, art, technology, business, and/or history of flight.

Managing Your Speed Near the Airport

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The NTSB analysis cites several factors, including the high speed of the Piper as it descended from the north over the airport’s parallel runways and flew a sweeping approach to runway 30L. The speedy low-wing airplane overshot the base-to-final turn and collided with the Cessna, which was doing pattern work on the shorter parallel runway 30R. The big lesson that I take from this event, and a similar midair at Watsonville, California (KWVI), also in 2022 (NTSB WPR22FA309), is managing speed in the vicinity of airports.

My Experience in the Naval Aviation Cadet (NAVCAD) Program

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To get a little better view approaching the threshold I leaned to my left and “stretched” up to maybe see a little more of the runway. In doing so my right hand had some upward impetus as well and the next thing I knew I had the stick in my hand but it was no longer connected to the aircraft!

Carburetor Icing and My Taylorcraft Accident

Preventing ice is your best bet to avoid becoming an NTSB statistic. Follow your airplane flight manual or operating handbook's instructions and use your carburetor heat whenever icing is probable. Remember, you can even pick up ice when taxiing or idling on the ground. If ice is likely, run the carb heat for a few minutes prior to takeoff to make sure that the carburetor is clear.
turbulent clouds

Turbulence

Mountainous terrain has its own share of drama for the pilot who is cruising over flat terrain and can see the terrain rising in front of him. On the East Coast, the Appalachians, and in the West, the Rockies, pose an interesting threat. The former can produce some interesting chatter in the aircraft all the way up to 10,000 feet.
Mechanic helping kid

Passing the torch

Pilots are life-long learners, and, per the Feynman Learning Technique, the best way to learn anything is to teach it to someone else. With that in mind, plus a desire to pass the torch to a new generation, some old pilots developed a week-long aviation camp for youth, ages 14-18. 
SGS 1-26

Soaring and the Aviation Safety Reporting System

The NASA ASRS system was created about 34 years ago, with the main purpose of identifying hazards to the overall approach to safety. In doing so, there had to be some caveats which insured its success. Perhaps the greatest one being that whatever information was disseminated through this process could not (BY LAW) be used in any type of enforcement against the reporting source.
approach fog

Danger lurks in circling approaches

Let us not forget that the circling approach maneuver is designed as a last resort, non-precision approach. A circling approach is one that, by dwindling numbers and its inherent design, forces the pilot(s) into a seldom used and high-risk evolution–often migrating us to an unexpected and seldom visited zip code of the threat/error management neighborhood.
airplane engine

Aviation shop rat

After about two years of ownership, and working with Shop A, I had the wild idea of asking them if I could work one day a week in the shop as an unpaid intern. My goal wasn't to become an A&P mechanic, but for the learning experience. To my surprise they said yes!
Glacier

Aviate. Navigate. Simulate.

I loaded up the last leg of my trip into the sim and then proceeded to not only fly that leg but decided to survey the entire area, virtually, to familiarize myself with both the terrain and any notable landmarks as well.
Pilot logbook

Remembering what flying was like fifty years ago

While I was training for my instrument rating, my instructor taught me what real partial panel was. No skid ball, that was easy to lose. No attitude or directional gyro, simulating a vacuum failure. Vertical speed didn’t mean much, so it got covered up, and who needs airspeed when you can set power and hear feel what’s going on. Besides, the altimeter is still there, along with the turn needle and the LOC/ILS.

Becoming an Aviation “YouTuber” Has Made Me a Better Pilot

We now live in a world where nearly anyone can produce their own online content, and this is amazing. However, it’s important that such content be created with a purpose. Otherwise it just becomes more self-obsessed, ego-stroking pablum that no one wants to eat.
Cirrus CFI

Tips for retread pilots

In today’s digital world, autopilots are incredibly accurate, especially compared with the analog versions you may have used.  Plus, they interface with most navigators such that you will be surprised at how rapidly you become proficient. Also, they are surprisingly affordable and are no longer a rarity in a flight school’s fleet. Once you are comfortable with the navigator, add the autopilot to your repertoire.
Angle of attack graphic

Angle of attack for dummies

Angle of attack is really a measure of how hard the pilot is commanding the wing to work with the air flowing past. If the pilot is not asking the wing to work very hard (low angle of attack) the wing will generate some lift. If the pilot is asking the wing to work harder (higher angle of attack) the wing will generate more lift.

What it takes to catapult off an aircraft carrier

The flight test pilots and engineers must develop a thorough understanding of many aircraft factors including aerodynamic stall speed, thrust available, angle of attack (AOA), loading, center of gravity (CG) location, and rotational inertia.
Thunderstorm

Flirting with the tropopause

The suffix pause denotes a boundary among the four layers of the atmosphere. The first pause is the tropopause, dividing the troposphere and stratosphere. There, jet streams corkscrew the globe like atmospheric snakes and create turbulence. Airline pilots strive to bestow passengers with a smooth ride, so knowing where the tropopause is in relation to the aircraft's flight level is a must.