Features

Everybody’s a comedian… Overheard this weekend. Pilot: Tower, Cessna1234 would like to shoot a missed approach. Tower: Cessna 1234 approved for missed approach. Pilot: Roger. How close can we come? Tower: … Just don’t hit the tower.

Cheney’s “No-Fly-Zone” The Vice President’s “No-Fly-Zone” has been a sore point among many pilots.I think it’s well-deserved and should definitely continue, even after he leaves public office. Especially after last weekend’s shooting incident. Not only will the Vice President personally shoot anything airborne, he’ll now even go after moving ground targets too.Darrel Toepfer Global Flyer […]

As do pilots all over the world, we who gather here in the Pilot’s Lounge at the virtual airport read and discuss aircraft accident reports. Recently we got to perusing a fatal accident involving a relatively new, inexperienced, private pilot flying in the Midwest.While I’m amending the details a bit to preserve anonymity, the gentleman […]

While doing some work, heard the following exchange on Kennedy Tower freq: Twr: Cactus 51, turn right zulu and golf, hold behind the plane that’s stopped to recycle. Cactus 51: Cactus 51 we’ll make the right zulu and golf, behind the recycled airplane … whatever that means. Trw: C’mon Cactus, you guys should know what […]

To those unschooled in the sport — and that is all but the tiniest slice of the dull, normal population — skydivers merely jump from airplanes and gravity does the rest. We’ll concede the gravity part for the moment, but getting out of an airplane with your wits intact is a practiced skill that deserves […]

Night Rescue Your report on the angst among the officials involved in the rescue of the two young people lost near Paradise is typical of the “professionals” (NewsWire, Feb. 6) As a long-time professional helicopter pilot, I can say that any number of pilots can do what the Sheriff’s Department and the CHP were unwilling […]

The end of a not very long day. One leg from SFO to home at the end of a four-day safari and we were almost officially at the end of our week.Humping our suitcases out of the luggage rack and with our flight kits dragging them to the front door, we paused only to hook […]

High-speed taxi … or low-speed takeoff. I landed in the first 150 feet of a runway in a Flightstar (Vx = 40 KIAS) and was taxiing past the main taxiway where an Air Asia 737 was waiting… Tower: 9M-EAU please expedite. Me: Wilco, 9M-EAU. […while acclerating to about 15 knots on the ground.] Air Asia […]