Flight Planning

Walla Walla Regional Airport (KALW) tower provided instructions to an incoming flight. “Cessna XXXXXX, incoming Alaska Q400 number two behind you. Make your best speed.” Response: “Walla Walla Tower, Cessna XXXXXX is a 152 and I’m pedaling as fast as I can!” Mark Carlile

Flying an airplane involves multiple concepts from physics: Bernoulli’s principle, centrifugal force, Newton’s law of gravity, to name a few. There’s one more natural law, though, that isn’t in the science textbooks: the faster you’re trying to get somewhere, the more likely you’re going to get unexpectedly delayed. Today’s a perfect example of that. You […]

During a formation flying clinic near Redmond, OR (KRDM) one fine spring day. Lead: “Alex, never tell anyone I said this, but you look very pretty right there.” Redmond Tower: “Good thing you said that for the whole world to know.” Peter King

SocialFlight.com has added a new feature to its website and mobile app, Expert-Led Online Community Forums. The forums are available from the user’s menu and the event map on the website and are in the 5.1 release of the free app for iOS and Android devices. Topics include aircraft ownership, operation & maintenance, pilot training, […]

The stats are in, the tallies tallied and the totals have been summed up: Loss-of-control tops the list of general aviation accident causes. Recent studies by industry and government point to loss-of-control (LOC) accidents in all their variations are the leading cause of GA accidents, both fatal and otherwise. According to the U.S. Government Accountability […]

Today ForeFlight announced ForeFlight 8, an update to the popular IOS app that CEO Tyson Weihs says, “Might be our biggest release since 2011.” That year marked ForeFlight’s first release designedspecificallyfor the iPad. The most obvious change is in mapping. Pilots using ForeFlight spend the majority of their time with a sectional or IFR en […]

Kermit Weeks always makes a splash at AirVenture but this may be his biggest ever. The serial aircraft collector and owner of Fantasy of Flight Museum in Florida will be part of the crew flying the massive Martin Mars flying boat from Vancouver Island in British Columbia to the seaplane base on Lake Winnebago on […]

The following was heard as my wife and I were flying our Mooney over the northern tip of the Great Salt Lake a few days ago and communicating with Salt Lake Center. Transient aircraft: “Center, do you have time for a question?” SL Center: “Sure, go ahead.” Transient aircraft: “OK, this is the $65 question. […]

Heard on a recent flight ATC: Skymaster 12345 clear to land 12345: I don’t know about a “Master” but my instructor thinks Im a pretty good pilot. Clear to land thanks. Greg Mills

I was flying an A-36 Bonanza through the SFO Class Bravo a few years ago and there was quite a bit of airline traffic departing at the time. ATC advised me of a Southwest 737 climbing out at my 1 o’clock and I let them know I had it in sight. Controller: “Southwest 9999 traffic […]