Eye of Experience

Reader Jerry Kurata requested a column on multiengine flying, and since I just afew minutes ago got home from giving a refresher workout to a very good multiengine pilot,I thought it would be a good time to comply with his request. By the bye, the guy I wasflying with is a much better pilot than […]

Whenthe FAA first experimented with the Accident Prevention Program, an Aviation SafetyInspector in each of two district offices was assigned the duty of establishing a programto prevent accidents. After a one-year trial period in those two offices, the program wasdeemed a success and it went national. Apparently, the FAA is in love with words. Why […]

Recognition F light schools and flight instructors are doing itall wrong. We are teaching our students how to make a stall and recover from it when whatwe should be teaching is stall recognition. Ask 100 pilots what makes an airplane stalland at least 70 of them will tell you it got too slow. The majority […]

Pitch to Altitudeand Power to Airspeed?… or Power to Altitude and Pitch to Airspeed? Several years ago, a pilot examiner of my acquaintance would askhis private applicants one question and one question only during the oral portion of aflight test. The question was, “Which control makes the airplane go up?” If theapplicant answered, “The throttle […]

This column was promptedby a recent enote from AVweb reader Marc Sabransky, who wrote me to ask about theapparent trend throughout the aviation community (and particularly the FAA) towardencouraging every certificated airplane pilot to get an IRA (Instrument Rating-Airplane).He posed the question: “Should every pilot be instrument-rated?” My answer isn’t just “No” but “Oh, Hell […]

As far as I can recall, no one has ever accused the FAA of beingeither logical or consistent in the interpretation of its regulations.The recent changes in Part 61 of the regulations provide severalglaring examples of the inconsistent and illogical manner in whichthe regulations are interpreted by the FAA. Of course, from thattime beyond which […]

Reader Jerry McKissack sent me an email requestingthat I do a column on the subject of carb ice. He wrote, “Couldyou do an article on carburetor ice and when to use the carburetorheat. What planes are more susceptible and why? I’ve heard the150 is notorious for carb ice-why? Can you do anything to reduceit or […]

To be or not to be? William Shakespeare, 1636 To spin or not to spin? Howard Fried, 1998 Ever since spin training was deleted from the primary trainingrequirements way back in 1957 there has been a raging controversyin the aviation education community over whether it was a mistake todrop spin training and whether or not […]

Much has been written about the fact that judgement is very difficult,if not impossible, to teach. We have all seen examples of flightstudents exercising poor judgement, and even on fairly rare occasionsflight instructors demonstrating faulty judgement, but when botha student and an instructor exercise poor judgement in a singleepisode it is bound to lead to […]

Many of us who hold airman certificates of one kind or anotherspend a lifetime without ever having contact with the Flight StandardsBranch of the FAA (knock on wood), but many others are not sofortunate. If you have never had the misfortune to experiencean enforcement action, listen up, because it can happen at anytime, and it […]