Reader Mail

Tie ‘er Down, Mate. Chocks, Too. Years ago I did a hand-propping demonstration at the annual Cessna 150-152 Fly-In. Since I was also skydiving into the Fly-In (yes, from a 150), my theme for the demos was “The dangerous can be done safely with proper training”. Both demos went off without a hitch. And were […]

AI Beats Human In Mock Dogfights Some interesting things about this one. 1. the pilot didn’t have much time in a simulator of this type, 2. the simulation didn’t have to simulate the full physics of a gunshot, it just had to get the opposing aircraft in a cone in front of its aircraft and […]

It’s Time To Sunset The ELT Requirement […]Nobody is addressing the primary advantage of an ELT – *Automatic* notification of a crash. PLBs, ADS-B, cell-phone, etc., all require some level of manual activation. None of them will automatically notify anyone that a crash has occurred. It’s somewhat like thinking “I’ll buckle my seat-belt *just* before […]

Wind Check, Please Brings back many memories about winds, airplanes, and airports. I didn’t do much light airplane/civil flying. I was a military transport pilot and flew 747 freighters till retirement. One thing I noticed as the guys and gals grew younger in the right seat was a greater propensity to want more “wind checks” […]

Buying The Old Ones: Homework Mandatory Absolutely agree–old airplanes DO fly differently than produced today. Robert Gilruth from NACA was the author of setting standards of how airplanes should handle–and that didn’t happen until 1937. I’ve flown more than 330 unique types of airplanes (depending on how you count them)–including many antiques–and later airplanes that […]

Which Came First, The Hangar Or The Airplane? There can be a third dimension regarding whether to acquire the airplane or the hangar first – the vacation home. I can recommend acquiring the airplane first. Then, it’s necessary to purchase a vacation home to justify the airplane. Finally, one builds a hangar near the vacation […]

Cue The Towering CUs You’ve reminded me of the time back in the 70’s we got SO tossed around in an early 50’s V-tail over eastern Kansas that the airplane got upside down … and we weren’t IN the TCU. An old heavy mike came off its perch and boinked the PIC/owner who was spurting […]

Drone Collisions: Maybe Humans Are The Problem I’ll posit that humans are the problem, but not in the manner stated in this blog. Rather, the problem is that small UAVs (drones) are so easy to operate by common folks, and so comparatively cheap, that anyone without any common sense (or responsibility) can have and operate […]

I’d Rather Be Mowing The owner of the airport where I live used to spend much time mowing around the runway with an ancient tractor pulling a bush hog. One year he fell prey to aging, and had a hip replaced. As you know, however, the mowing must go on, so I volunteered to run […]

Takeoff Accidents Analyzed Paul, thanks again for what you do to promote aviation safety. I think you just saved a life or two with that video. Someone will see that video and have an engine failure on takeoff that will benefit from going through your teachings. 16 years ago, I lost oil pressure in my […]