Features

We were on a training flight to Ramona Airport. The ceiling was 3000 broken on a gorgeous winter day in San Diego. We heard the tower talking to an aircraft departing the pattern: Tower: “Caution. Birds, westbound 700 feet.” A few minutes later we heard: Tower: “Those birds are geese flocking up.” This was followed […]

“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 this magazine and the industry as a whole—spend a lot of time preaching to pilots about the mechanics of understanding weather forecasts, […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication,Aviation Safety magazine. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause on the NTSB’s website at www.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after the accident, […]

Accident Probe: Lack Of Peer Pressure I worked at Flight Service for 20+ years at many locations including Utah and Alaska. Aside from aircraft handling accidents (moose stalls, density altitude issues, running out of gas, flying up a canyon where terrain elevation increases faster than your climb rate, etc.), I’ve come to the conclusion that […]

While holding short of 11L at Tucson International Airport recently I heard the following: Tower: “American 1234 cleared to land 11L.” American 1234: “Cleared to land 11L. By the way we passed some balloons out here at 3400. American 1234.” Tower: “What color and what direction of movement?” American 1234: “Red and white. Headed west.” […]

Distractions are a dangerous element in flying, whether IFR or VFR. A distraction is the process of diverting one’s attention from a required area of focus or task— thereby hindering, or even completely blocking the reception of vital information or addressing a critical task. Mental interruptions may be caused by several things; the lack of […]

When I was a student pilot, I was lucky to have some grizzled mentors. There were a lot of “do this” and “don’t do that” admonitions, a lot of tips regarding shortcuts and rules of thumb, plus some sage advice about decision-making. A lot of that advice could be broken down into the old “It’s […]

Automation And The Boeing 737 MAX It is clear to me, there is a basic disconnect by designers/engineering/manufacturing, with the art of flying. Automation is supposed to augment or replace hand-flying. To accomplish that, the design team has to clearly understand flying. Not only from the basic lift/thrust/drag/gravity, but how an airplane feels when flying […]

Just off the shore of northwest Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico, is HEVVN, an oft‑used fix for pilots crossing the Gulf from the southern U.S. over to Florida. I was recently in Alabama and heard this exchange with Atlanta Center: Center: “Citation 456, Atlanta. To what fix are you navigating?” Citation 456: “Uh, well, […]

From constructing play forts to rigging her little red wagon up to a self-propelled lawn mower for a wild ride down the street, pilot, writer and A&P Lisa Turner grew up with an interest in building things. It was an interest she chose to pursue—not a common path for a girl in the 1960s. She […]