Flight Safety

Preparation And Exams Dr. Gary Kawesch and author Brent Blue one day after the procedure. I walked into the Center at the appointed time. As expected, it is a beautiful office with the requisite pictures of the doctor with movie and entertainment stars in the lobby (Danny DeVito, Robbie Krieger of the Doors, Nicole Murphy, […]

I was scheduled for my private pilot checkride and everything was set. The paperwork was in order, my instructor had signed everything he needed to sign and the cleanest plane on the line had been reserved. I got myself to the airport two hours early just in case, via the most circuitous means imaginable, beginning […]

The combination of the arrival of spring and daylight savings time seems to have a way of luring pilots back to their airports from months of hibernation. Here at the virtual airport, the pilot’s lounge is getting more crowded. From where I sit, I hear plans being made by a group to fly out for […]

Dave Oglesbee was born August 15,1962, in Camanche, Iowa. His dad noted his interest in RC airplanes, gave him achance at the real thing, and Dave was hooked. He worked at the airport for payfor flying lessons and missed his high school senior group picture to take hisprivate checkride. He earned an ROTC scholarship to […]

The NTSB supplied complete copies of the documents in its docket on the March 29, 2001, crash of a Gulfstream III bizjet on approach to the airport at Aspen, Colorado on CD-ROM. Data on the CD-ROM consists primarily of a series of TIFF images comprising the various documents in the docket. A display engine is […]

I guess I’m mean, but this is one of my favorite ways to trigger “go-around mode” in training and on checkrides. Not for me the old saw of “fire truck on the runway” or the like … much too mundane. I usually wait until the power is all the way off, flare is complete, and […]

The other day I had a very pleasant time flying with Eric as he scoured off some of the rust and demonstrated that he had a pretty good handle on this instrument flying stuff. As forecast, the weather was deteriorating, so much of the time we were in the clouds. After we landed, we sat […]

Sometimes I wonder that if in an earlier incarnation I was a great aviator. Because of that previous life, perhaps some of that superior genetic code lingers on inside of me. That is the only explanation that I can think of for my superior piloting skills. I am superior, you know. A natural-born pilot is […]

TYPE OF HONOR OR AWARD PRESENTED BY, DATE Raymond Gray Scholarship Union Pacific Railroad, 1939 Naval Aviator United States Navy, 1942 Tau Beta Pi University of Washington, 1948 Sigma Xi University of Washington, 1949 Lawrence Sperry Award, “for important contributions in aeronautical flight research at transonic and supersonic speeds up to Mach 2” Institute of […]

A. Scott Crossfield was bornOctober 2, 1921, in Berkeley, Calif. He took his first flight at age six in anoil company airplane, a flight that hooked him on aviation for life. DuringWorld War II he was a fighter pilot and fighter gunnery instructor in the U.S.Navy. In 1950, he joined NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory […]