776 search results for: things i know about flying

CFI with student in Cessna

Student pilot nerves and the fear of flying

Most flying instructors will be familiar with the sight of student pilot nerves and most pilots can remember experiencing them. Learning to fly presents the student with all kinds of challenges. How each person reacts to these depends upon their individual strengths and weaknesses.  For some, they must overcome a fear of flying itself.
Frazer River Canyon

The forever weekend: flying my Cheetah to Canada

When our Grumman-American Cheetah left the runway of Pearson Field, Vancouver, Washington, on that Saturday morning, my wife and I anticipated a pleasant, scenic flying weekend. It turned out to be that and much more. But we had no idea that this takeoff was the beginning of a trip that would mark a milestone in our lives.

Flying 3500 miles in five days—and enjoying every minute of it

I hope that this story can serve to encourage other aviators to stretch their wings and horizons by expanding their comfort zones, to see and experience things that are unavailable to our earthbound neighbours, and to share these with others, whether they are other pilots, your friends and family, and anyone else that needs to see what general aviation has to offer.
Palmer Lear 24

Arnold Palmer Talks Flying: A Baker’s Dozen with the Legendary Golfer

From logging nearly 20,000 flight hours to setting a round-the-world speed record, Arnie loved flying. This interview is from a recorded discussion I was lucky enough to have with the King himself in 2002, where he shared some recollections as a pilot.
On top of clouds

A few of my favorite things from last summer’s trip around the US

My wife, April, and I flew over 11,000 miles in our Cessna 206 last summer. We pretty much circumnavigated the lower 48, with a couple of “great loops” to boot. Our mission: to take our daughter’s used Ikea furniture and household items from her Houston apartment to Bangor, Maine, where she was working on assignment.

Flying with the famous and infamous

Flying Boeings and Bells was how I crossed paths with Charles Lindbergh, Mustapha Chafik, the Shah of Iran’s nephew, Mohamed Ali, Leonard Bernstein and Richard Nixon. Geopolitics and the ups and downs of the airline business played a hand as well.
UH-1H

From Vietnam to Kobe Bryant—the long history of flying helicopters in fog

Preliminary findings in Kobe Bryant’s helicopter crash tell me things haven’t changed much in over a half century. Today, as back then, instrument rated pilots flying IFR capable helicopters continue to tempt fate by pressing ahead at low altitude in low visibility. And mostly they make it to their destination! But it’s an insidious gamble, particularly in hilly areas.
Stellar Airpark

Don’t take things for granted

In the late 1970s and early 1980s I was a traffic watch pilot in Phoenix, Arizona. Radio station KTAR provided the on-air reporter and the FBO at Deer Valley provided the Grumman AA-1C aircraft and pilots. The AA-1C certainly wasn’t the ideal aircraft for the task. It didn’t perform well in high density altitude operations. On a hot day with full fuel it would barely make it to 5500 feet.
Tail logo

Flying in the Iditarod Air Force

I began my climb and started looking for a low spot to cross the ridgeline, west to east. The only problem was there was no ridgeline, only more of the white wall all around me that became denser as I climbed. I continued the 180-degree turn and extended it to 360 degrees and at the same time dove the airplane to get out of the snow.
Spitfire in flight

Flying the Spitfire—a real bucket list experience

"Once-in-a-lifetime. Bucket list. Wish list." Terms we often use to describe an out of the ordinary, incredible experience. While we toss these terms around quite frequently, how often do we actually experience something that deserves the moniker "once-in-a-lifetime?" I'm sure you'll agree it's pretty rare. Recently I participated in a genuine bucket list experience.
Shane and son

Two memorable days of flying with my son

I like to think there are a handful of driving forces in my life. Family and flying are two of those and, thanks to a supportive family, I sometimes get to combine those. My jack-of-all-trades FBO/mechanic/pilot/instructor career choice often means that flying takes me away from the family, but during a special couple of days I got to share an airplane delivery trip with my nine-year old.

From the archives: Wolfgang Langewiesche on mountain flying

Wolfgang Langewiesche is famous for writing the bible on flying, Stick and Rudder. He was also a friend of Air Facts founder Leighton Collins and a frequent contributor for the magazine. In this detailed article from 50 years ago, Langewiesche offers some timeless tips for flying in the mountains.
Valley in CO

High mountain flying course: it takes more than a pilot license and a plane

Our first stop of the day would be Granby, Colorado (GNB) to visit the headwaters of the mighty Colorado River. This was the first leg of a flight that would demonstrate what I had learned in an eight-hour ground school at Western Air Flight Academy as part of a High Mountain Flying Course.
Triple Tree fly-in

5 good things about general aviation in 2019

I like to pause every few years and consider what’s going right in aviation. Call me a naive optimist if you like, but I still see a lot to appreciate, from the thousands of airports in the US to the relative openness of our airspace to the strong experimental aircraft movement. These trends are old news; five newer ones caught my attention at the Sun 'n Fun Fly-in last week, and I think they bode well for pilots.
Route to Chicago

Flying 275 miles so I could run 26.2 miles

Last October my parents and I flew to the 2018 Chicago Marathon. We could have driven six hours from Ohio and paid $70/night to park the car at the hotel, flown commercially, or taken the flight school’s Piper Arrow on the 275nm flight. We elected to take the Arrow.
T-39 Air Force

Flying Air Force officers around in Sabreliners

The CT-39 played a useful role for years in the Air Force; it provided a good capability to transport senior officers quickly and cheaply and a platform to season young pilots, preparing them for bigger and better future assignments.
Radar map

The two rules of weather flying

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!
Captain

10 ways to know you’re ready to be an airline captain

I completed my line check last night, which went pretty smooth overall. I screwed up the usual stupid stuff you don’t normally screw up, but because the weight of the check is present in your head and really nowhere else, this stuff happens. I am left with the feeling of what now?
Stearmin

Fitting in flying around a busy life – and learning a lesson

As a student pilot, the ups and downs of the learning cycle can be as exhilarating as your first flight or as frustrating as bad weather on a day you really wanted to fly. On one particular day after not flying for a few months, I had my first “I can’t believe I did that!” moment. I had asked my instructor to go on a “no stress, fun flight.”
King Air 350

5 events that shaped my flying life

I learned to fly in a Piper Colt at tiny Concord Airpark east of Cleveland. It was nearly 50 years ago and in the more than 10,000 hours of flying all types of general aviation airplanes since these are the events that did much to shape my life in the air.