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How many times have you been approaching an unfamiliar uncontrolledairport and had difficulty determining the landing runway andhow to enter the downwind leg? The decision as to which runwayto use is often made in a hurry while preparing to land. I have seen some situations of pilots using left turns when rightturns are clearly depicted […]

In northwestern Tanzania at the lower end of Lake Victoria is Mwanza, a small port city, with a long but narrow runway. A few years back a DC-8 crashed trying to land there and the remains are scattered in various places around the airport. But that’s another story. Last week, at about 2000 local time […]

Myadventure started when my soon-to-be-husband and I began searching for a WilgaPZL-80. We figured finding one of the ungainly-looking Polish birds in thecondition we wanted and a price we thought fair would be a relatively easything. Six months later, after a thorough search of the U.S., Canada, and muchof Eastern Europe, we had revised our […]

Sincethe dawn of aviation, generations of pilots and would-be pilots have lustedafter that which God did not give them. No, not wings — they want perfectvision. In addition to the annoyance faced by mere mortals who have to wearglasses or contacts, pilots around the world also must deal with stringentvisual standards from civil aviation authorities […]

In early February, Boeing’s second-largest union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), went out on strike. I’m in kind of a unique position; I’m one of the striking engineers and also an aviation journalist. It is said that this is the largest white-collar strike in history. Couple that with the fact that […]

BetterJob? I become quite upset when I hear a youngflight instructor announce that he/she is just teaching until a “goodjob” or a “better job” in aviation comes along. I want you toknow – there is no higher calling for an aviator than to be a reallyfirst-class, professional flight instructor. There is no better job! And […]

Cliff Robertson was born in La Jolla,Calif,. and saw his first airplane at age five. By age 13, he was a dedicated hangarrat and his reward for washing and waxing was a little unofficial stick time. Years later,in the suburbs of London, the urge to fly surfaced again and hasn’t gone away since. Cliff is […]

Strictly speaking, maneuvering should include pullupsand pushdowns and all sorts of aircraft antics. While those short-lived non-steadyaccelerations are hard to figure, turns are easily handled by the bootstrap approach.There will still be lots to talk about. First we’re interested in geometric turn relationsand how those influence aircraft safety and performance. It’s a tale of two […]

Oneof the regulars here at the Pilot’s Lounge went through an interesting processrecently. Armando made the decision to obtain his flight instructor certificate.He has a full time job that pays reasonably well so he probably isn’t going tochange careers. Some of the other regulars thought he was crazy to spend themoney to get what is […]

Myfirst Aerostar, a 1974 600A, came equipped with a Wulfsberg Flightphone I. Thiswas a manually-operated early model — “New York operator, this is QM-2602I’d like to call 215-555-5575 please…” — and was only half-duplex. Thatmeant only one person could speak at a time; “I’ll be home at 6:30 …over,” I’d say to hear my wife […]