Flight Training

More than two months after the crash of a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX off Indonesia, divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the seabed. The recorder was dug out from beneath 26 feet of mud on the floor of the Java Sea. The aircraft dove at high speed into 100 feet of water […]

A front is the border where one distinct air mass meets another. More correctly it’s a frontal area, since the contact surface stretches from the ground into the upper limit of the troposphere. The area that intersects the ground is where the front is drawn on a meteorological analysis map. The front is defined based […]

Not a big fan of Best-Of lists. They rank number eight on my Top 10 Least Favorite Things list, right below raindrops on roses. Recently, AOPA published survey results of a Top 15 list of “classic” airplanes. The Waco F-series caught my eye. These are the stoutly gorgeous open-cockpit biplanes from the 1930s and 40s, […]

Remembering Herb Kelleher Just wanted to say thank you for publishing Myron Nelson’s beautifully crafted remembrance of the late Herb Kelleher. It was spot on. I was privileged to oversee the induction ceremony of Herb in 2008 (along with Sean Tucker and two others), while serving as Executive Director of the National Aviation Hall of […]

A French helicopter pilot got the job done in a tight rescue operation in a back country ski area of the Alps on Jan. 2. A skier was climbing up the mountain in the Pass of Anterne in Passy, France, when he fell and hurt himself. His companions called for a rescue and got out […]

A year and a half ago, it dawned on me that what I most enjoyed about my previous career as a science communications consultant was when I got to commute to visit clients in my faithful Cessna 180. With some 1500 hours in my logbook—accumulated primarily on those business trips—I sent out my rsum to […]

In case there were any doubts that the pilot shortage is real, the South China Morning Post is reporting that China’s People’s Liberation Army has joined the rest of the aviation world and launched a pilot recruitment drive. The army has created a flashy promotional video aimed at 17- to 20-year-olds and 2019 high school […]

As the government shutdown grinds on with no end in sight, calls from the aviation industry to restore funding are getting more strident and the system is starting to show some strain. Possibly the biggest concern is the furloughing of 3,000 “safety specialists,” who support air traffic control functions. Another concern is that virtually all […]

Archaic Flight Procedures I learned to fly in the 70s and have been flying my own airplane since then. At that time, I didn’t think the private pilot flight training was overly difficult. Over the past 40 years since getting my license I have been upgrading the equipment in my plane primarily to make flight […]

The looming pilot shortage has been discussed ad nauseum. It’s here. Some airlines have cancelled flights for lack of qualified pilots. Airlines are offering programs to enable young people to go from zero hours to the right seat. Many solutions have been proposed including salary increases, lowering the number of hours required and so on, […]