Flight Training

Stuff happens. One minute the engine may be purring like a kitten, the next it can be coughing up a hairball. Pilots who react well to such challenges often credit their training, applying the instincts honed by indoctrination without the need for excessive thought. How does that happen? Most pilots regularly practice simulating an engine […]

I’m not sure I know where to look when seeking wisdom about things aeronautical, but I know two places not to look: the YouTube comments section and the dreary carnage of the NTSB database. But wisdom is different than inspiration and the latter can be found in both those sources. Scrolling through the comment field […]

The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) has announced that Martha King, co-chair and co-owner of King Schools, has been appointed to CAP’s Board of Governors. King will be succeeding retired U.S. Air Force Major General Teresa Marn Peterson when Peterson’s second three-year term comes to an end in November. In addition to founding King Schools in […]

It was a Tuesday and, while stopped at a traffic light, I watched an average man step off the curb, unaware that Karma was about strike. The light was in his favor but entering the crosswalk he froze. “That average man has a problem,” my wife of 35 years, who understands men with problems, said. […]

High school classes in the U.S. can now sign up to compete in the 2019 Aviation Design Challenge, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association has announced.The annual competition aims to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)education by offering an aviationcurriculum and a virtual fly-off. “This will be our seventh consecutive year hosting this life-changing competition,and […]

Flight schools in Europe that focus on training private pilots now can operate under simplified rules released by the European Aviation Safety Agency last week. The new rules create two types of flight schools—Declared Training Organizations, or DTOs, which can train private pilots, and Approved Training Organizations, which focus on training professional pilots. DTOs now […]

The pace of technological change can be excruciatingly slow sometimes … we’ve been waiting eons now for battery-powered airplanes that never need maintenance … but it’s relentless. I’m reminded of the college classmate who told me, way back in the last century, that she was making a smart choice studying to be a keypunch operator, […]

A bill now under consideration in the U.S. Senate would provide grants to flight schools to help them recruit veterans to train to become commercial airline pilots. The bipartisan American Aviator Act, introduced by Senators Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., and John Hoeven, R-N.D., proposes to authorize up to $5 million per year to fund the program […]

Forget that shiny new octocopter, a Bay-area startup wants to make your Cessna 172 autonomous. XWing says it has created “plug and play” software that can make most light aircraft fly autonomously. Details on how it works have not been released but the technology will revolve around “sensing, reasoning and control,” according to aviation tech […]

The Air Force is hoping to ease its pilot shortage by speeding up the training of new pilots using virtual reality simulators. The first class of 20 Pilot Training Next (PTN) candidates, 15 officers and five enlisted personnel, finished their course on Friday and 13 of the officers passed. Two officers washed out and were […]