Proficiency

Not all flight reviews are equal, and rusty pilots are not at all uncommon, but I recently faced a scenario that gave me pause. It read like the beginning of an NTSB report with a stack of extremely novel circumstances. My choice was either be one of the contributing factors to an accident or one […]

During training and checkrides, pilots are expected to be able to use all the features of a glass panel including the autopilot. In this article we’ll address some of the intricacies of addressing that challenge. This is especially relevant to instrument rated pilots who have mainly flown round gauge airplanes without autopilots and flight directors. […]

When the Cirrus first appeared 25 years ago, one of its safety features was a split-incidence, stall resistant wing. Yet the airplane still has a stall accident pattern and one that has a twist: Many of the stalls occur on go-arounds. In this, the fourth in our five-part podcast series on stall awareness and prevention, […]

The turn needle was probably the earliest attitude reference for instrument flying. It dates back about a hundred years and it provides an indirect indication of bank, which made it possible for pilots to control an airplane by reference to “needle, ball and airspeed.” We’ve come a long way since then. The instrument platform I […]

Canadian authorities appear to have a well-documented and recorded case of hypoxia in their investigation of the stall/spin fatal accident involving a Piper Navajo a year ago. On Aug. 1, 2018, an Aries Aviation PA-31, a well-maintained aircraft regularly flown by experienced pilots, inexplicably spun into a 10,000-foot mountain peak while on initial descent to […]

The International Civil Aviation Organization will hold meetings in Montreal next week to review pilot licensing requirements. ICAO officials said the meeting was organized to review whether current training standards are relevant for pilots of modern highly automated airliners. “Recently, with current events, people are discussing whether the minimum requirements or experience are still valid, […]

Every so often I’ll get a casual inquiry from a “usta” pilot, someone who has a pilot’s license but hasn’t flown for a long time. Quite often, they’ll have an instrument rating and several hundreds, or even thousands, of hours of professed time. The conversation will start with “I used to fly, quite a bit. […]

Aviation Consumer Editor in Chief and Editorial Director of Belvoir Media Group’s Aviation Division Larry Anglisano, five-time Space Shuttle commander Jim Wetherbee and FAASTeam Manager Ben Struck will speak at the 4th Annual Westchester Aviation Association’s (WAA) General Aviation safety conference on the evening of June 4, 2019, in Tarrytown, New York. Learn about the […]

I happened to run into Armando during my last visit to the pilot’s lounge at the virtual airport. He’s been around the aviation insurance world for some years, is a CFI and has a common-sense approach to the world. We had some of the lounge’s lousy coffee as we chatted and watched takeoffs and landings […]

Visit any flight school, flying club or FBO and you’ll hear many “go or no go” discussions. Rarely will you hear a “need to or want to” discussion—and yet the correct answer to this fundamental decision is the one that can keep you alive and thriving. You say you’ve never had to make this decision? […]