Flight Safety

I got a note from a reader commenting on Friday’s blog on pilot starts and populations. His view was that everything is more or less about the Benjamins and more people would fly if it were cheaper. We’ve reduced that dead horse to molecular slurry so I won’t argue the case for or against. It […]

For over 70 years general aviation pilots have volunteered their time, skills and airplanes to help others in need by giving free flights for everything from search and rescue through medical transport, environmental survey and research to disaster relief, animal transport and exposing kids to the world of flight. What has been termed Public Benefit […]

A 22-year-old Alaskan had the shortest combined takeoff and landing distance in the 2016 Valdez STOL competition. Bobby Breeden, flying a Super Cub, took off in 40 feet and landed in 55 feet to win the Alternate Bush category and claim the overall distance title at the competition held two weeks ago at Valdez Airport. […]

Egypt is deploying a submarine to search for the main wreckage of EgyptAir Flight 804, which could be as deep as 10,000 feet below the surface of the Mediterranean. Searchers found pieces of EgyptAir Flight 804 in theMediterranean Sea along with human remains, officials said Friday. Seats and passenger belongings also were found 180 miles […]

A Zenith Zodiac 601 went out of control after landing and crashed into a parked Cessna 441 on Tuesday in California, catching on fire. The pilot escaped with burn injuries. KCRA in Sacramento reported that the pilot, 75, had touched down on the runway at Nevada County Air Park in Grass Valley, then veered into […]

All seven crew members on a B-52H Stratofortress that crashed Thursday morning in Guam escaped the aircraft before it went up in flames. The heavy bomber, deployed to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam from Minot AFB in North Dakota, was on a training flight when it crashed. Details on the B-52’s phase of flight […]

In another chapter of my publishing career that might as well have taken place on Mars, I worked for a company that hit the magic. It started a publication in the craft field right in the midst of an explosive interest in craft revival in the mid-1970s that few knew was happening. (No internet then; […]

A reader of IFR Refresher recently inquired about the ATC/Pilot relationship for departures from airports in Class G (uncontrolled) airspace—specifically executing these clearances, and ATC’s expectations of how that aircraft will maneuver. Hailing from an en-route center where mountainous terrain dominates and TRACONS are scarce, I frequently encounter situations where aircraft request departure off one […]

EgyptAir officials said late Thursday that debris spotted in the Mediterranean was not from the missing Flight 804.”We stand corrected on finding the wreckage because what we identified is not a part of our plane. So the search and rescue is still going on,” the airline’s vice chairman Ahmed Adel told CNN. The Airbus A320 […]

A British pilot flying across the U.S. to commemorate the nation’s airmail pioneers crashed her Stearman in the Arizona desert last week, halting the journey until the biplane is repaired. Tracey Curtis-Taylor, who earlier this year flew the 1942 Stearman from the UK to Australia, said in a Facebook post she’s determined to get her […]