Search Results for: vfr

With glass cockpits becoming more prolific, a wider spectrum of the pilot community is now engaged in flying them. Understanding the implications of malfunctions is an important responsibility of the PIC as higher levels of technology competence and preparedness are required. While glass presents increased capabilities for pilots, it also offers a new set of […]

Anyone who’s been watching the torturous progress—if it can even be called progress—of the Third Class medical revision can be forgiven for a certain amount of cynicism. Many of us, I think, have given up completely, so much so that earlier in the week, I demurred from even writing about it again. I figured I […]

Legislation designed to waive the third-class medical for private pilots flying light aircraft has turned into a plan to require one-time medicals for new pilots or those who haven’t had one for more than 10 years, according to remarks made Thursday on the Senate floor by Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. Inhofe, who introduced the Pilot’s […]

The NTSB reports of the 100 most recent Beech Baron 55 crashes turned up some unexpected results: there were only three runway loss of control (RLOC) events, far fewer than we expect for tricycle-gear airplanes; for an airplane with a fuel system that has a reputation as simple, the majority of the 15 fuel-related accidents […]

AOPA released the first of a new series of weather videos Friday, offering pilots “real world” methods to gather and analyze weather with emphasis on preflight planning and en route decision making. The first video, “Weather Wise: Gathering Information,” is just over eight minutes long and reviews aspects of preflight planning while using Flight Service […]

Talk about IFR holding patterns in a recurrent training setting and your time will most likely be spent discussing entries, maximum speeds and mandatory reports. There is a need created by the realities of the system for ATC to park you somewhere in the sky until it is time to move on. The reasons for […]

In Brainteaser Quiz #210 we invited readers to share stories of their favorite aviation getaways, real or fantasy. Money was no object, because it wasn’t ours. And because fantasies can get a little weird, we’ve expunged all names that might link back to a non-pilot spouse or employer suddenly realizing why you get that faraway […]

Houston was only an hour behind us, but the weather was turning out much worse than forecast. The ceilings were steadily lowering and the METAR updates said the few airports along our route were going from marginal to worse. A pop-up IFR clearance would have been great, but there was a little problem: the airplane […]

Earlier this month, the NTSB released findings on trends in general aviation accidents. The GA fatal rate, after an all time low of 1.12/100,000 hours in 2013 reversed its trend to 1.4. That’s the highest since 1998. The overall accident rate spiked slightly from 6.26 in 2013 to 6.74 in 2014. But do these numbers […]

In spring 2003, I was halfway through my flight training. My instructor and I were chatting about air traffic control. He’d just visited the local TRACON. From his description, I pictured a dark room filled with the intense chatter of men and women half-lit by radar scopes and blinking sci-fi lights. A few short years […]