Flight Safety

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in Twin & Turbine, Jan. 2005, and is reprinted here by permission. You know all those little cubbyholes at the pilot shop where you find Jeppesen aeronautical charts? Imagine a factory filled with thousands of them. Aisle after aisle of cubbies filled with charts stacked six feet high. You […]

It’s time for us to have a heart-to-heart talk again, folks. Time is short. This is the last summer we’re going to have before the really big retirement wave of controllers start. That would be in January of 2006 if you want my opinion. It’s already started, of course. It isn’t going to hit all […]

If you’ve read my previous columns, you know that I have advocated changing the way we train new pilots. The old, maneuvers-based training is no longer meeting the challenge of today’s technically advanced aircraft and the evolving national airspace system. We’ve got to spend more time teaching folks to make good, solid judgments and to […]

Summer finally arrived, so someone stuck up a notice in the Pilot’s Lounge here at the virtual airport that stated we might as well have an airport cookout before Mother Nature changes her mind. On the appointed date the weather cooperated and there was an excellent turnout. It provided an opportunity to chat with some […]

Every pilot will tell you that summer flying is very different from aviating in the winter months. Wasps in the pitot tubes are absent in January. There are no chunks of airframe ice keeping your stabilizer from working during July; and in the Northern Hemisphere, your gloves will never freeze to a jetway as you […]

If you’ll remember, last month I left you hanging over the Snowbird VOR, in the clouds, with no radio communication. This month’s task is to get back on the ground. Let’s review.Here’s the flight plan we filed: N12345C172/A110 kts.Dep. KHKY (Hickory, N.C.) 6,000 feetHKY..BZM.V20.SUG.V185.SOT.V136.VXV..TYSArr. KTYS (Knoxville, Tenn.) And here is a low-altitude en route chart […]

One thing that continues to amaze me about General Aviation, not just here in the Pilot’s Lounge at the virtual airport, but everywhere I fly and visit, is the number of pilots who selflessly expend considerable sums of their own money and time to help others. I once tried to analyze why so many pilots […]

Good afternoon everyone and thanks for joining this call. AsDoug mentioned, my name is John Carr, President of the National AirTraffic Controllers Association. And just to clarify, although the FAA [news conference] event happened probably was an hour or two ago, we just got our hands on the [FAA] report [on the New York TRACON] […]

My entire career in aviation has had to do with the immolation of the remains of dead dinosaurs. Beginning with my early years as a bicycle-riding line boy right through the last 23,000 pounds of Jet A that I burned from New York to Dallas, the rotting remains of latter-day super lizards have driven my […]

I‘ve been threatening to write this article for a while now and it’s as good a time as any. If you want to start an argument among pilots you only have to ask one little question: “Yeah, but what happens if you go NORDO?” If you read any aviation forums on the Internet, you know […]