Flight Training

I was thinking about taking a pass on my FAA Third Class medical, which was expiring at the end of May. I always dread this process (the paperwork, the physical), as do most pilots who have lived longer than five or six decades. But I decided to take the chance once more, and postpone a […]

The virtual airport and its pilot’s lounge came into being when I started writing this column almost exactly 20 years ago. (There’s a partial index of the columns hereand here.) The airport, the lounge and the characters who brought their wisdom to the discussions reported in the columns were, and are, an amalgam of airports […]

If you’re lucky, you’ve gotten some of your aviation education from an instructor with extensive real-world experience. One CFI who fits that description—having flown freight, charter, airline and corporate without ever giving up teaching in the 35 years he’s had his certificate—likes to remind students of the difference between procedure and technique. The former is […]

No matter how much we who carp continue to carp, certain aviation themes will never change. It’s karma—what happens to pilots happens because we made it so. An unchangeable percentage of aircraft will run out of gas or slide sideways off runways in the mildest of crosswinds, and—unrelated to safety but irksome—82 percent of our […]

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 […]