Reader Mail

The Case For Flight Helmets Thought provoking piece Paul. I don’t consider myself short at 6’1” but always crave better visibility when taking off or landing my Husky. It has an excellent 5 point harness but a fixed position seat. As a result, I’ve taken to using cushions to improve visual awareness. The downside is […]

A Good FOD Walk Spoiled Paul’s comment about playing the fool made me smile. Many years ago during a surprisingly pleasant afternoon, I was invited to fly a friend’s Ercoupe. I was fond of Ercoupes, their pleasant demeaner, the wonderful visibility, and the freedom of open cockpit flying, and wasted little time in pulling it […]

Suddenly Chatty Air Force Sending A Message Back in 1965, not long after President Johnson made the SR71 “public”, I was in high school in Fort Worth, Texas, home of Carswell AFB. The base was home for squadrons of B-52s and the supersonic B-58 “Hustlers”. We routinely saw both leaving in the morning for missions […]

Roll The Trucks I’ve declared emergency 3 times in my 20 years in the Pt. 135 business. Twice as PIC with smoke in cabin and once as SIC with flap failure. Never once did I get asked to file a report even though the trucks were rolled. Of course, my chief pilot handled reports to […]

Guest Blog: The Wrong Way To Teach Forced Landings EXCELLENT article! In training, we too often concentrate on whether or not we “made the field”–rather than “what’s wrong?” The author does an excellent job of emphasizing the preflight and flying the airplane–this is as it should be–concentrate on PREVENTING the scenario, rather than “did you […]

Improper Towing Led To PA46 Nosegear Failure Similar problems can occur in Beech Bonanza and Barons. The scissors that hold the nosewheel straight are of dissimilar metals, so that improper towing will break one of the arms rather than the main structure. Damage here is usually a crack where the scissors join, often obscured by […]

Aviation Democratization Kinda Gives Me A Headache Very well written. Having learned to fly in the 70’s I was spoiled with ramps chocked full of brand-new Cessna, Pipers, and Grumman “personal fighters.” Today on the ramps are the ragged remnants of that glory age of making personal flying machines. Honestly, if you can’t even succeed […]

Airplane Sales Go Haywire I’ve owned a desirable M model Skyhawk for 36 years. When it was 10 years old, I purchased it for $13.5 and later spent another $13.5 to put a left over brand new 160hp engine in it in the early 90’s (one of the engines that were built for the Piper […]

Veterans Day: Thinking Past Thanks For Your Service Beautifully written, thoughtful piece, Paul. As you describe, my adding years is also one of those waypoints on the chart of life that just seems to allow for more mental space to step back and turn more freely in thought when looking at issues like, in this […]

Two Bernies Who Saved Aviation The incongruously named “KSFZ – North Central” leaves local residents of Smithfield, RI unaware that there is an airport in town. And where are the North Left and North Right airports anyway? Funnily enough North Central moniker IS used to help identify a trifecta of fields that used to be […]