Leading Edge

One of the hardest parts of flying instruments is making the transition from on-the-gauges to visual flight at the missed approach point. Visual and instrument pilots also have difficulty at times landing in the proper touchdown zone because they’re too fast or too slow on final. One way to make safe, consistent landings, and to […]

The airplane may not know it’s dark, but the pilot does, and the accident record shows it. AVweb‘s Thomas P. Turner helps reduce the risk of night flight. Added Risk Countering the argument that “The airplane doesn’t know if it’s light or dark,” the record clearly shows a greater number of aircraft accidents at night. […]

A commonly glossed-over subject on complex-airplane checkouts can cost you several knots in cruise speed, and perhaps several hundred hours of operating life from your cylinders. It’s not the landing gear, or a controllable-pitch propeller, or even the mixture control. Cowl flaps can have a profound, long-term effect on the health and longevity of a […]

If a nonpilot asks you “How do you take off?” how would you answer? Line up with the runway, add power, accelerate to liftoff speed, raise the nose and go. But is it really as simple as that? Every year airplanes fail to get off wet or muddy runways, or to clear obstacles past the […]

“That’s by far the best Flight Review I’ve ever had.” That’s among the greatest praise a flight instructor can receive. It was even more meaningful given the man who said it has actively flown for decades, and has seen his share of required, recurrent training. I don’t quote his comment to boast; instead, I repeat […]

The Wright Brothers were successful because they combined two vital elements of airplane design: control and stability. Wilbur and Orville achieved control through a pioneering design that evolved into what’s used in almost all fixed-wing aircraft today — a system that makes use of the stability designed into the airplane. Controllability cannot exist without some […]

You heard it in the Sun-N-Fun 2008 LSA Mall. Whether you were talking to pilots of Cubs, Luscombes, Bellancas, Cessnas or Beechcraft, it echoed strong in the Type Club tent. It was the talk of manufacturer’s displays and the exhibition hangars. It was even touted by purveyors of very light jets. It seems like the […]

Most of us taxied an airplane on our very first flying lesson. After a period when we learned part of what our feet do in airplanes (a much longer lesson in tailwheel aircraft), taxiing became second nature, quickly becoming an assumed part of our aeronautical skill set and falling out of the lesson plan and […]

“VFR Flight Not Recommended.” How often have you heard this phrase and flew anyway, to find conditions perfectly safe? And how many times have you heeded the warning and canceled, only to see perfectly flyable weather? Yet there are times the admonition proves wise, and “on the edge” conditions grew just enough worse to make […]

I was arriving at Wichita with the GPS set up for the ILS Runway 1R approach. About 10 miles from the final approach fix, approach control called: “9PT, change in runway, expect the ILS 1 Left, fly present heading to intercept the localizer.”My world got really busy, fast.I was facing what safety researchers call an […]