Flight Safety

It was, as I recall, a Sunday afternoon. The weather was superb and we were in the middle of Nigel’s semi-annual half day of recurrent training. He was, as usual, right on altitude, heading and speed, and way ahead of the airplane even though I’d covered instruments and he was doing it all partial panel. […]

AVweb had decided to Profile Col. Joe Kittinger long before current headlines had developed. But his trailblazing research on emergency escape and survival procedures for astronauts gives him a unique perspective on the Columbia disaster, and his 11 months in the Hanoi Hilton remind us what American pilots might face in the skies over Iraq. […]

Many people think they know all about the devil-may-care life-on-the-razor’s edge existence of an airline pilot’s existence. They have no idea.Movies such as “Catch Me If You Can” seem to show the public the truth about the flying life of a crew. The double-entendre sex talk with the flight attendants, the first-class hotel stays with […]

I was working the early morning shift at the Air Ambulance Shopwhen I happened to read one of the many articles written aboutcollisions between aircraft on what controllers call movementareas but what pilots know as runways and taxiways. One of those articles mentioned the well-publicized collisionbetween a USAir 737 and Skywest Metroliner in position for […]

This article appeared in the March 2002 issue of IFR Refresher magazine, and is reprinted here by permission. You probably haven’t been called on lately to define the segments along an approach course, but you might remember a time when it would have been handy to know why the designer created such an obstacle course […]

With Spring just around the corner I thought we should spend some time talking about VFR operations. I know it’s been a while since we’ve covered the real basic stuff in ATC so if you’d like to review what I’ve already written, you can find everything here, including ATC 101 and ATC 102.Speaking of review, […]

First, the usual “housekeeping.” One alert reader pointed out that I had referred to the in-flight mag check, but never explained it. Let me do that in my next column. Some of the excellent “reader responses” (by e-mail and a couple of forums) deserve mention here. Those Skydiving Airplanes First, I don’t think I’ve ever […]

This article appeared in the July 2002 edition of Aviation Safety and is reprinted here by permission. One of the nagging questions that plagues the pilot who doesn’t fly every day is, “Am I really ready for this flight?” The problem is even more serious when contemplating an instrument flight, particularly when the weather is […]

There is a deep, abiding pleasure in discovering a place that is somehow both pilot- and family-friendly; where a pilot can share the joy he or she feels when in the sky with the most important people in his or her life. Not long after I had listened in on a gripe session in the […]

For 35 years, Howard Fenton’s been telling airplane owners about the health of their engines by analyzing their oil. Howard has spotted everything from broken piston rings to excessive bearing wear to worn valve guides. Once he tracked down an airplane he was convinced was about to throw a jug — and it was. In […]