Flight Safety

A new program that launched this week in Wichita, Kansas, will provide technical training for high-school students to prepare them to step directly into jobs in the aviation industry. Aviation Pathway is a joint effort involving Textron Aviation, Wichita Public Schools and WSU Tech, a technical college based in Wichita. Staff at Textron approached public-school […]

Several readers took exception to my comment in the Vashon Ranger review advising pilots to fly these airplanes beyond the 1320-pound limit. Said one message forwarded to me: “I just don’t think it’s right for someone who does so many reviews of so many aircraft to basically wink and nod and tell people it’s OK […]

Mechanic Shortage Regarding legislation that creates a program and funding to help with the shortage of aviation mechanics, I submit something that is a factor in the equation. Several weeks ago in the Phoenix area there were protests demanding the minimum wage go to $15 per hour. McDonalds was targeted by supporters of pending legislation. […]

You can say a lot of things about light sport airplanes, but one of them isn’t that the sky has been darkened with 1320-pound wonders. Sales remain modest at best and a company selling 30 or 40 a year has a smash hit. Now comes new startup Vashon to reset that equation with a heretofore […]

As a student pilot I badly embarrassed myself by making about six go-arounds while trying to land at an airport in a gusting crosswind. My instructor had told me to land there, so I had then told myself that I had to land there—there was no alternative. I also had internalized that go-arounds were a […]

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is testing out a program that will allow seaplane pilots to clear customs via its Reporting Offsite Arrival – Mobile (ROAM) app. There are currently only two locations where this service is available for seaplanes: Scott’s Seaplane Base on Crane Lake, and at the Shagawa Lake Seaplane Base in […]

While drones are increasingly used near crowds, the FAA still prohibits their flight directly over people. As a means of gaining FAA approval to fly drones over crowds, a company called Indemnis has developed a fast-deploying ballistic parachute that’s designed to resist entanglement if the aircraft is tumbling or spinning, thus making crowd flights safer. […]

The Aviation Safety Reporting System, ASRS, is a means of confidentially and anonymously reporting unsafe conditions—including your own actions—in aviation, generally without fear of FAA enforcement. Most of us are at least somewhat aware of the ASRS program, but few of us really understand how it works. This is an important program that is of […]

The NTSB has opened the docket on Air Canada Flight 759, which mistakenly overflew a taxiway at San Francisco International Airport, barely missing four other airplanes. Information released by the NTSB included the video below, showing Flight 759 in the upper left, and more than 500 pages of reports, interviews, documents and data on the […]