Flight Safety

A hand-propping gone wrong launched a vintage J-3 Cub on a 1.5 mile flight on its own last week in Nebraska. The Lincoln Journal Star is reporting that police say a mechanic was trying to start the Cub at Central City Airport on the evening of May 3 but didn’t realize the throttle was open. […]

Simply fly long enough and you’ll eventually make a boneheaded or innocent mistake that gets in ATC’s way. Those may say a Pilot Deviation (PD) is where they “screwed up” or “ATC is blaming me for…” I’ve personally heard it put in many different—often creative—ways; I should keep a list. Here is how the FAA […]

Acknowledging that loss of control in flight (LOC-I) has been “the single greatest cause of fatal aviation accidents for more than a decade” FlightSafety International (FSI) has launched a joint Upset Recovery Training Program with Mojave, California-based Flight Research. With its fleet of more than 40 aircraft, including supersonic jet fighters, business jets, pistons, turboprops […]

In response to what the agency describes as “a dramatic increase in unruly or dangerous behavior” by passengers on commercial airlines, FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson said, “We will not tolerate interfering with a flight crew and the performance of their safety duties. Period.” A normal year sees up to 150 recorded cases of dangerous behavior […]

ForeFlight calls its latest 13.3 update “one of our biggest in years,” with multiple new features. Dynamic Winds and Temperatures displays forecast wind speed, direction and temperatures at multiple altitudes and times from all around the world. Color-coded heat maps represent primary forecast values at the selected altitudes and times. Overlaid particle animations show wind […]

Any pilot who has used a personal airplane for regular transportation has had to negotiate bad weather. By the time you accumulate more than 4500 hours of flight time, it’s likely you have dealt with a cold front or three, plus night IMC and a variety of other challenges. With that kind of flight experience […]

Airshow performer Matt Younkin is fine but his pristine Beech 18 is a little banged up after a partial gear-up landing in St. Joseph, Missouri, on Thursday. Younkin was headed to perform his spectacular twin aerobatics routine at the Sound of Speed Airshow. “As you may have heard, we had an interesting arrival at the […]

ZeroAvia’s ambitious program to develop hydrogen-powered aircraft suffered a setback on April 29 when its Piper Malibu Mirage testbed was severely damaged in an off-airport landing in the U.K. The aircraft landed in a field adjacent to Cranfield Airport. The left wing was sheared off in the mishap, as was the nosegear. There was also […]

After a while, even brand-new pilots start racking up logbook entries in a series of different aircraft. At first, we may not care, grateful for the flight time, and not pay much attention to how each aircraft has its own character. Each one also has its own story, reflected in your pilot’s logbook and those […]

It might seem surprising that after all these years of tracking magenta lines, GPS navigation is still considered “cheating.” But there are many procedures where it remains unclear when using satellite navigation as a primary source is a no-no, and the distinction can be confusing. The American Bonanza Society (ABS) is presenting an FAA FAAST-sponsored […]