AVweb’s Flight Safety section offers in-depth coverage of aviation safety topics, including accident analyses, risk management strategies, regulatory updates, and pilot training insights. Designed for pilots, instructors, and aviation professionals, this section provides timely information to enhance situational awareness and promote best practices in flight operations.
It was a typical late winter day in Chicago — overcast and in the low 50s. My student, Joe, was getting close to his instrument checkride and wanted to get some actual IFR practice in and, since I am reluctant to sign a student off for the instrument rating without some cloud time, I agreed. […]
Air rage is big news these days, but it seems to apply only to passengers who act up. Sadly, it occurs in cockpits, too. There are a small number of pilots who really do need some counseling in anger management, a lot more who could use some of the techniques, and nearly everyone could benefit […]
It’s another one of those nights when I’ve stayed here in the Pilot’s Lounge after everyone has gone home. Tonight it is because I am still seething. I don’t want to get into my car because the level of anger I have over a case I settled this afternoon is still building. I have no […]
At 12:26 PM on the 18th day of February 1943, the fortunes of the B-29program disastrously hit rock bottom. At that instant, Boeing research testpilot Eddie Allen, his crew and the heavily instrumented #2 XB-29 were destroyedin a crash. That story is told in “Eddie Allen and the B-29.” This is the story about the […]
The Twentieth Air Force and the B-29s it used to bomb Japan shortened the warby months, perhaps years, and saved, it has been estimated, a million or more U.S. casualties by ending the war before a planned invasion of the heavilydefended Japanese homeland was undertaken — an invasion that was scheduled tobegin November 1, 1945, […]
Robert M. Robbins was born May 15,1916, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. He learned how to fly during the summer beforecollege, earned a bachelors degree in aeronautical engineering from MIT in 1938,and went to work for Pan Am as a flight engineer on Boeing 314s. Three yearslater, with only 361 hours as PIC in single-engine aircraft, a […]
A bit over 25 years ago, the FAA selected a General Aviation Operations Inspector in each of two District Offices (Detroit and Grand Rapids, Mich.), designated them Accident Prevention Specialists, and charged them with the responsibility of establishing a safety program on a test basis. Each of these two inspectors selected several flight instructors in […]
The NTSB supplied complete copies of the documents in its docket on the October 16, 2000, crash of Gov. Mel Carnahan’s Cessna 335 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 also provided for installation on computers running […]
Pregnant Pilots One question I am frequently asked was not an issue when I got my pilot’s license 30 years ago — what about pregnancy and flying? Women were just breaking into the left seat of heavy airplanes and there were not all that many even in general aviation. Now, the aviation community has seen […]
Okay, let’s tie the ribbons on this series by discussing the right way to manage our turbocharged powerplant at the end of our flight when it’s time to get our airplane down from altitude and back on terra firma. (We’ve been airborne for five months now, and frankly I’m ready to stretch my legs and […]
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