Flight Safety

[Editor’s Note: Recently two flight instructors wrote a book on how to use Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX) to enhance pilot training and to provide sim-only pilots a guide to making their flying more realistic. AVweb is reprinting several chapters from this book, the first of which was Chapter 13 — Weather. To download the […]

Cruising in the sun after a long ground delay, three bouts with de-icing and a half-mile-viz takeoff on a snowy runway can really help a pilot relax. The sun was shining in the big, 767 cockpit window on my left and was slowly roasting my arm. I still had my zone heat up high and […]

Nominate an FBO |Rules |Tips |Questions |Winning FBOs AVweb‘s “FBO of the Week” ribbon goes to Aviation Technology at KSDF in Louisville, Kentucky. AVweb reader Don Gay tells us how the Tec team came through for him just last week: My twin Cessna 310 had a bad case of plug fouling and clogged fuel injectors […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Consumer magazine, Nov. 2005. However unpleasant the specter of $4 avgas may be, it has become a harsh reality. The $5 barrier fell in early 2005, and as we go to press, Signature at Teterboro, N.J., can claim the highest avgas price in the country: $6.10. [Editor’s Note: At […]

This article originally appeared in IFR Refresher, Feb. 2007. Every one of us remembers the old phrase, “Fly the airplane first.” The reference is to our first job as pilots, which is to maintain safety of flight and/or operation any time we are sitting in the left seat and the engine is turning. It means […]

Nominate an FBO |Rules |Tips |Questions |Winning FBOs AVweb‘s “FBO of the Week” ribbon goes to Prior Aviation at KBUF in Buffalo, New York. AVweb reader John LaCourt recounted his experience at Prior: On our first flight to my wife’s old home town we flew to Buffalo with family friends. With only a hour or […]

We all strive for precision and safety in our flying. If there is a recurring theme to smoothly lifting off into climb, maneuvering with a safe margin above stall, squeaking the tires onto the runway at our planned touchdown point, and maintaining control and precision even in emergencies, that theme is airspeed control.Airspeed is a […]

It had started as a run out to the Pilot’s Lounge at the virtual airport to check on plans for our annual end-of-the-year bacchanal and ended up with me wandering into a chance to learn from my betters. Sandy, our airline pilot, lost a friend of hers in a post-takeoff crash a few years back. […]

Nominate an FBO |Rules |Tips |Questions |Winning FBOs AVweb‘s “FBO of the Week” ribbon goes to 1st Class Air at KSPI in Springfield, Illinois. With storms criss-crossing the U.S. for the last few weeks, many of our most glowing recommendations have come from pilots who found themselves trapped in less-than-ideal conditions far from home. AVweb […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Safety, Nov. 2005. We all have so-called “personal rules” we use to help us make decisions when everyday challenges arise. In aviation, they are sometimes called personal minimums and are used to help us decide whether this morning’s low visibility and cloud cover — even if legal VFR — […]