Flight Safety

I was on an airliner flying over the Midwest on my way to a business appointment in June and it struck me that I had forgotten just how green it is in the middle of the country in the summertime. Southern California is a lot of things, but green in the summer is not one […]

Not long ago I wrote a column about the discussions we had in the pilot’s lounge here at the virtual airport concerning training instrument students in actual instrument conditions. There was a lot of feedback from readers and, overall, it turned out that a fairly large majority of people was in favor of such training. […]

Rick L. Cremer was born November12, 1945, in South Bend, Ind. His stepfather was a civil engineer for the stateof Michigan, so Rick moved from Alpena to Traverse City to Detroit while hisstepfather surveyed for the then-new interstate highway system. He took flyinglessons in high school, but didn’t finish his private certificate until midwaythrough his […]

Not long ago, Rick Durden and I wrote companion columns on the subject of buying and selling airplanes. Now it is time to discuss airplane paperwork – the maintenance records which provide a complete history of everything that has been done to the airplane since it left the factory as well as a complete equipment […]

This article appeared in the February 2001 edition of IFR Refresher and is reprinted here by permission. From the very first day of our instrument training, we are taught never to descend below decision height (DH) or minimum descent altitude (MDA) unless the runway environment is in sight. It is a basic concept of instrument […]

When AVweb approached me about writing this column, I really didn’t know what to think. I was flattered, of course. But I was apprehensive, too. First of all, I’m not a writer. Secondly, despite my title, I’m just a plain old everyday controller. I didn’t get any special training to be a Safety Representative for […]

Largely as a result of these columns, I am privileged to get a lot of email about engines and the basic principles, and I monitor a number of forums and mailing lists where pilots and owners hang out online. GAMI gets even more mail and phone calls of course, with over 8,000 sets of GAMIjectors […]

Editor’s Note: This column should be printed out and posted on airport bulletin boards everywhere now and again next July. After getting back from Oshkosh I unpacked the airplane, put it away and walked into the pilot’s lounge here at the virtual airport to see what had happened while I was gone. One of the […]

Polly Vacher was born January 13,1944, in Paignton, England, and spent her childhood in the rolling hills andsunny beaches of Devonshire. She trained as a physiotherapist, then as a musicteacher, married, and raised three sons. Her attraction to flying began in 1989when she skydived to raise money for a charity, and she subsequently logged 245jumps. […]

At a recent press conference, Hal Shevers, founder and “head guy” of Sporty’s Pilot Shop, mentioned a drastically different training technique that Sporty’s Academy has been employing in its ab initio program. Instead of doing things the “traditional” way – planning for the Private Pilot practical test from the beginning – they start all students […]