48 search results for: Leighton Collins

Cessna P210

Personal flying’s greatest champion

I was so lucky to work for and with Richard for more than 40 years. Richard refused to be called an aviation journalist. What he did, and I did, at FLYING magazine, and for him at AOPA Pilot, and then for Air Facts Journal on the web, is personal aviation promotion. Richard championed the cause of using our own airplanes for personal travel on our own schedule with a maximum of schedule reliability and safety.

Air Facts turns 80: some things have changed, some have not

On the 80th anniversary of AIR FACTS’ founding, I see two good questions: (1) What have been the major factors in the safety record improvement over the years and in particular the last couple of years? And, (2) Is there any way to reduce the risk even more? It is tempting to give technology a lot of potential credit for improvements but a look back throws a bucket of water on this.
Pilot in G1000 cockpit

O Airplane! My Airplane! Let’s talk

Recently I read where an academic has suggested that talking about what is going on might be helpful to folks flying single-pilot IFR. That rekindled my interest in the subject of us talking to airplanes and how airplanes respond. Put another way, it relates to how we talk to ourselves, or think, about how what we are doing is affecting the airplane.

70 years ago: a first lesson and a first article

I am not much for commemorations, preferring a windshield over a rear view mirror view. But, hey, maybe I have set a record: 70 years and still going so I’ll offer that up for contemplation and as well as a challenge to the younger folks in this business today. It would make me proud if someone did it for longer.
cockpit shot of Malibu

Arriving at the VFR sweet spot – without colliding or spinning in

To me, the sweet spot on a VFR approach is when 500 feet above the ground and descending toward the runway. Here, if the sight picture of the runway is correct and the configuration, speed and rate of descent are right on, the fun part, the landing, should be a piece of cake. The question is, how do you get to that sweet spot with the least possible risk?
TWA 707 ad

From the archives: Bob Buck gets a Boeing 707 check out

This in-depth report, originally published in the September 1960 edition of Air Facts, is Bob Buck at his best. The legendary airline pilot and author takes us along as he checks out in the Boeing 707, the defining airplane of the jet age. From practicing maneuvers to taking a check ride and flying to Europe, Buck explains how the big jet flies, why it's different and how it is changing the airline business.
Full cockpit of aviation authors

10 pilots in a 4-seat Cessna

I am so lucky. Every flight, I am accompanied by nine extraordinary pilots, looking over my shoulder and whispering in my ear. They have made my flying safer, more enjoyable and less expensive. They’ll go with you, too. All you have to do is ask.
Turn from cockpit

The three keys to flying safely

In this important new article, Richard Collins sums up over 50 years of aviation safety writing with three key concepts - "the things that a pilot really needs to know to stay alive." It turns out safe flying has a lot more to do with mindset than fancy maneuvers.

Father’s Flying Day

Flying with my father meant that airplanes were part of my life from the very beginning. I have seen the highs and the lows as well as all in between and I have enjoyed every minute of it. Someone asked me if I grew up around airplanes. I said, no, I grew up with airplanes.

Weather Flying, fifth edition – the legendary book flies on

When Bob Buck’s book Weather Flying was released in 1970, it became an instant classic. Wolfgang Langewiesche said of it, “Other books explain how weather is made; this book explains how weather is flown.” Truer words were never spoken.
Cessna 140

From the archives: Wolfgang Langewiesche flies across Africa

Today we are pleased to republish “140 in Africa,” a delightful article that will take you back in time. Legendary author Wolfgang Langewiesche shares the simple pleasures of flying low and slow across a vast continent. This originally appeared in the March, 1951 edition of Air Facts magazine.

Fly safely – think like a golfer

At first glance, flying small airplanes and chasing a tiny white ball around a golf course seem like completely different activities. But while the stakes are certainly higher in aviation--nobody ever died from a bogey--I think there's a lot for pilots to learn from elite golfers.

Safety: our greatest challenge

Pilots spend an awful lot of time talking about safety, and we're no exception here at Air Facts. Some readers have suggested we actually do it too much--quit the morbid talk about crashes and promote the positives in aviation, they say. Are we really overdoing it?

Aerial encounters

The sight picture of the approach end of the runway was perfect. The speed was perfect. It was a great day right up to the point where the innocence of the moment was lost. There was a flash of something, followed by quite a bit of noise, followed by the feeling that our Cub was injured and being jerked around.
Garmin G5000 panel

The IFR conundrum: is it as it appears?

Back in the good old days, there was a lot of scud running and not much real IFR. A lot of us thought that the best way to improve the general aviation safety picture would be to get more people into IFR flying. But one of life’s simplest pleasures comes in realizing that you were wrong about something and that is true here.
William Piper

Happy 75th birthday, Piper

Piper Aircraft Corporation was formed in 1937 by W. T. Piper, Sr. Over its 75 years there have been many ups and downs and changes. A brief history is available on Wikipedia. Here I would like to offer some anecdotes about how I related to the company over the years.
Controller

Opinion: Making the Headlines

The general media does a great job of keeping us abreast of what is going on with fast-breaking events. Take away the tsunamis, tornados, executions and weddings, though, and it seems like the media wanders aimlessly while looking for something to attract viewers or readers.
Controller

Feature: Personal Air Transportation in the Good Old Days

Note to the reader: This is the first chapter of a book that I started but will probably never finish. It was to be about the history of general aviation as seen through the eyes of two Collins boys, Richard and Leighton. Richard wasn’t born in the time covered by this first chapter but I have my father’s logs and papers to use in covering this slice of the good old days.
Controller

Meet the Authors

Timothy Acker Timothy is a flying addict with a 45-year re incident record. He holds a SES and SEL rating in the US, but long ago flew commercially in South America with additional ratings including multi-engine. He is 100% English/Spanish…
Controller

Air Facts History

Leighton Collins started Air Facts as a monthly publication with the first issue dated February, 1938. It was a small trim size, about the same as Reader’s Digest, and that first issue had but 16 pages. The tagline on the cover was “Facts-Knowledge-Safety.” The…