Flight Safety

The pilot lounge in Newark is larger than most but otherwise is the same as all of them. Lazy Boy recliner chairs are scattered about the brick-walled windowless room like the remnants of a close-out furniture sale. Some of them are broken down by hundreds of desperate toss-turned nights spent by harried (and cheap) commuters. […]

Several months ago I wrote a column entitled Some People (Just don’t Belong in the Air). At that time, because of lack of space I did not include what is perhaps the most blatant example of an individual who had no business even approaching within 50 feet of an airplane, let alone attempting to operate […]

Advancing your ratings makes you a better/saferpilot. We’ve probably all heard that statement more times than we can count, andmost pilots probably accept it as an empirical truth. However, others feel thattheir lack of advanced ratings does not make them any less safe or competent tofly the planes they do, the way they do. At […]

As I was rummaging around in my brain for some interesting stories to amuse pilots, I kept coming across the same thing again and again: Maiden. It dawned on me that much of my career has revolved around Maiden. From the day I walked in the door at Atlanta Center, to the present day, Maiden […]

I‘ve long promised myself I’d never get in this argument again. I have resisted manfully (is that sexist?) Every time I start to say something on this subject, I cover my ears and start the usual mantra, “Pink elephants, pink elephants…” trying to avoid even thinking about it. It’s a little like the time we […]

The pilot’s lounge relocated a bit to the south, while I spent some time doing volunteer flying in a Cessna 206 for LightHawk, the airborne conservation organization. LightHawk does most of its work in the U.S., but assists in efforts in Central America during the winter. My rotation was in the country of Belize. I’ve […]

It’s 12:40 on a lovely spring afternoon. My boys are in school; my chores and my errands are done. I grab my driver’s license, a blank check, my “Be A Pilot Certificate” and head out the door. I am determined that today I am going for a Discovery Flight. Flying in New England in the […]

If you don’t get in that plane and learn how to fly, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life. – paraphrasing Rick Blaine, from the movie Casablanca It is not the things that you do in life that you regret, but the things that […]

It don’t come easy, you know it don’t come easy. Got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues And you know it don’t come easy — Richard Starkey In the best of circumstances, becoming a pilot isn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination. Not only are we presented with novel […]

FEDERAL AVIATION REGULATIONS Sec. 61.35 Knowledge test: Prerequisites and passing grades. (a) An applicant for a knowledge test must have: (1) Received an endorsement, if required by this part, from an authorizedinstructor certifying that the applicant accomplished the appropriate ground-training or a home-study course required by this part for the certificate orrating sought and is […]