Flight Safety

AVweb’s Flight Safety section offers in-depth coverage of aviation safety topics, including accident analyses, risk management strategies, regulatory updates, and pilot training insights. Designed for pilots, instructors, and aviation professionals, this section provides timely information to enhance situational awareness and promote best practices in flight operations.

Short Final

The Collings Foundation’s bombers were giving rides while I was getting ready to depart the airport at Ramona, CA early this summer. When I called for takeoff, I was told to hold short while a B-17 landed. After that beautiful plane cleared the runway, the follow exchange happened: RNM: Cessna, cleared for takeoff, caution wake […]

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Wingsuit Left Hanging

American skydiving showman Miles Daisher makes his living doing extreme sports but even he’ll admit a recent jump was out of the ordinary. Daisher and other members of his Miles Above television series were doing a wingsuit jump for the cameras when the boot on the suit snagged around the gear leg step of the […]

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Stalls For The Hell Of It

For the past 10 days, I’ve been flogging the Cub around testing some new action cameras from Garmin and GoPro. Look for the video on that next week. While the Cub is fun to fly, it’s not like you’re going to take one on a trip, unless you’ve got calendar-scale time to burn and an […]

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Aviations Elevator Operator: Flying Skydivers

There has been one light quietly continuing to burn despite the dark news of declining general aviation activity—that’s sport parachuting, you know, skydiving. While the number of pilots has dropped, airports are closing and new aircraft sales just struggle along, skydiving activity has been consistently growing. Canny airport managers looking at red ink in their […]

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FAA Proposes Mentoring Programs For Airline Hires

New airline pilots would go through professional development and mentoring programs along with enhanced training for captain upgrades, under a proposed rule the FAA developed after several years of working with airlines and others in the industry. The agency announced this week it will publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which would open a 90-day […]

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Another Look At Fly By Wire

As aviation technology goes, nothing is quite so enduring as the steel cable or torque tube as a means of manipulating flight controls. Add hydraulics for big airplanes, but the basic idea has sustained for more than a century. Is it time to revisit the idea? That’s being done commonly in the automotive world, with […]

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Regs OK Virtual Currency For Canada Pilots

Pilots in Canada can meet their requirements to stay current without ever getting into an actual airplane, under a rule exemption that was enacted by Transport Canada in August. The change will make pilot training more “cost effective and efficient,” officials at Transport Canada told The Globe in a statement. The agency also said the […]

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FAA Hits SMO Evictions

The FAA is demanding proof from the city of Santa Monica that it will be able to legally and safely provide aviation services at Santa Monica Airport now that it has evicted the FBO and flight school on the field. The agency has subpoenaed the city to provide all the relevant documentation (certificates, ratings and […]

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Ryder Cup Penalty For Floatplane Pilot

GA pilots have been cited for delaying presidents, clearing the Capitol and stopping missile tests but a Minnesota floatplane owner may be the only one to be detained for interrupting a golf game. The unidentified man and his passenger were rowed to shore by Chaska Police (the motor on their boat failed) after they landed […]

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