Reader Mail

Shark Says No Thanks To Pushing A Youth Record Having flown around the world myself (Mooney M20K, following Amelia Earhart’s route in 2017) I have received queries from several young people wanting to set “youngest” circumnavigation records. I detail the issues I had with weather, getting fuel, systems failures, and the like, which challenged my […]

Overcoming Multiple Checkride Failures At the end of my career as a DPE I retested and passed a woman who had endured exactly this kind of behavior on her first try for PP. That DPE was not removed, and I subsequently heard that his behavior toward female applicants is well known in the region. I […]

To Dream The Irrational Dreams There are always the facts that: one, it’s available on short notice when you want it (shop time notwithstanding). Two, you don’t have to have it back at a specific time regardless of weather. And three, you have a better idea of the maintenance history and condition of the plane. […]

Off-Field Landings Excellent summary. I would add that, except for maybe the Cirrus and a few others, aircraft are designed with horizontal crashing in mind and not so much vertical. So although minimizing forward speed is essential, it’s just as essential to avoid stalling as that would increase the vertical speed component. Since part of […]

Humanity On The Wing: Gail Halvorsen’s Lasting Legacy Great story with an appropriately excellent title Paul! In 1995 while temporarily based at Tempelhof I had the good fortune to be invited by long time acquaintance Ake Johnasson aboard his DC-3 on a VFR Berlin sightseeing charter flight. Most passengers on that flight seemed to be […]

FAA Admin: Who Would Want This Gig? After a 31 year career in ATC under 9 FAA Administrators and 10 Acting FAA Administrators, it’s no wonder the agency has no direction as there’s no consistency of leadership. There were programs that came and went, and tons of others that were promised but never implemented. The […]

Accident Probe: Course Reversal In IMC Turning around is ok if you have trained for it. I got vertigo in the left seat of a B-52 doing a descending right turn between layers of sloping clouds. I had been trained to believe the instruments and I locked onto the HSI and told my copilot to […]

FAA Letter Hits, Again, At Illegal Compensation For Carrying Passengers As demonstrated by yet ANOTHER FAA “warning” about “Illegal Charter Operations”–this is going to become a larger and larger issue for Private and Business pilots. It’s too bad–it’s bad for the industry in multiple ways. I can’t blame NATA for trying to protect their “slice […]

Buying A Used Aircraft: Cessna 210 Centurion Having owned a 1978 T210 for over 20 years, I found the article accurate but missing one important point: CO in the cabin is a common problem. The aircraft operates with the cabin at negative pressure, and the exhaust is pulled inside the airframe under the cabin floor. […]

Sleepwalking To 100UL There are a number of things that can be done right now. One is alcohol free mogas availability. Overnight this will reduce the use of 100LL. My airport refuses to carry it so I tanker it in. It is available at the pump in premium grades 91/93, although my STC says it’ll […]