(This story originally appeared in Aviation Safety Magazine.) “Everyone talks about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it.” Stop me if you’ve heard that before. The same could be said about managing the risk of general aviation. We—both FLYING and the industry as a whole—spend a lot of time preaching to pilots […]
The one time I suffered an engine failure, it was partial, not total. One cylinder’s intake valve spontaneously disassembled itself—a neat trick for a one-piece component—leaving the other five jugs to continue merrily along, albeit with some major vibration and a distinct power loss. I had plenty of altitude and enough engine power to reach […]
One of the most important bits of information pilots can glean from our instrument panels is airspeed. It’s used on takeoff to gauge when to apply backpressure for liftoff, it’s used when landing to ensure we’re neither too slow or too fast, and we use it in cruise to help verify performance (and establish bragging […]
One of general aviation’s most time-honored practices involves two or more pilots being aboard the same airplane at the same time. The purposes vary—from training and proficiency, to boring holes in the sky, to chasing down a $100 hamburger, and everything in between—but it’s not at all rare to find more than one pilot seated […]
One of the truisms in aviation is that there’s weather no airplane should tackle. The addendum is that if you want to go shoot approaches in your Cessna 150 through relatively benign IMC, there’s probably not that much that can go wrong. But even a 747 likely won’t tolerate extreme icing. And we all (should) […]
Congrats on your new instrument rating! You’ve spent a lot of time, money and energy accomplishing something only a very small portion of the overall population ever will. With your well-earned privilege comes great responsibility and flexibility in your flying, and possibly a rung in the ladder to some additional certificates. The thing is, though—perhaps […]
Outside of large training organizations or fleet operations, there is little standardization of equipment, systems or procedures within general aviation. Toss in a few years among different owners and identical airplanes that rolled off an assembly line together 10 or 20 years earlier will vary wildly in their equipment, maintenance history and wear and tear. […]
As new aircraft and avionics become more sophisticated and capable, a pilot’s learning curve becomes more complicated. Understanding how and why things work the way they do is a critical part of our training and study. Brian Sagi’s article for Aviation Safety, “Automation Misbehavior,” explores some of the ramifications and remedial actions pilots should know […]
Owning an aircraft is an empowering experience. Winged assets in your hip pocket can open up all kinds of opportunities and adventures free of many concerns associated with traditional clubs and aircraft rental operations. It’s also an awesome responsibility, often isn’t kind to your wallet and can bring many new and unanticipated challenges. For one […]
I’m going to go out on a fairly stout limb with this statement: No pilot ever plans to become an accident statistic. Instead, we all approach every flight in the firm belief it will be successful or we don’t fly. Too often, of course, events conspire against us—or we screw up—and the flight’s outcome isn’t […]
