Flight Safety

When you arrived at Plant City you were on a VFR flight plan. What was your original plan for the day? I started in Melbourne. I was building cross-country time for my instrument rating. I want to get the instrument rating first, then I’ll have enough hours to go right into the commercial rating. At […]

I am not proud of this all-too-true story.It demonstrates incredible stupidity and poor judgment on my part, and it is the closest Ishall ever come to dying without doing so. I have told the story to only a very smallhandful of people, and I am certain that some of those probably don’t believe it, as […]

As the snow piles up around the windows at the virtual airport and some of the resident airplanes grow funny appendages on their landing gear, I always ponder the fact that many pilots will spend a pile of money to put their feet into skis but few ever explore flying airplanes with skis attached. That’s […]

Rod Machado was born in Oakland, Calif., in1953. He’s half German and half Portuguese, which he claims gives him a geneticpredisposition to conquer a country and then go fishing. He began flying at 16, soloed at17, took his private pilot checkride with legendary instructor Amelia Reid, and, a fewyears later, began to teach flying. After […]

Asis the case with many of my columns on AVweb, a reader who wrote andasked for an article on the Ercoupe inspired this one. Our reader had this tosay: You should do an article on the Ercoupe. What other plane can you buy for less than $15,000 that cruises at 110 mph, burns less than […]

No, I haven’t changed my mind about theusefulness (and the dangers) of the classic early descent to MDA and flying along levellooking for the runway, nor the usefulness (and the dangers) of doing CANPA, the so-called”Constant Angle Non Precision Approach” when appropriate. But my previous column obviously needs a little follow-up. Like theseven blind men, […]

Winteris finally getting a grip here at the virtual airport. Airplane owners aresniffing the air and have set up engine heaters. Lots of hangars have airplanesplugged into wall sockets, as owners hope their steeds will start on the coldmornings without damaging the engine. The regulars here at the Lounge arestarting to look forward to our […]

First of all, congratulations on getting down safely. What was that last200 feet like? We were about a hundred and fifty feet from touchdown and to have a landinggear come through your windshield and the windshield come flying into your lapis kind of a strange sensation. The airplane on top didn’t really push us downthat […]

01/13/1982 16:01 LOCATION: Washington, DCCARRIER: Air FloridaFLIGHT: 90AIRCRAFT: B-737-222REGISTRY: N62AFABOARD: 79FATAL: 74GROUND: 4DETAILS: Crashed shortly after takeoff into the Potomac River and sank. Failure to turn on engine anti-icing system. Crew inexperience in icing conditions. Cockpit Voice Recorder Transcript Air Florida flight 90 – DCA-FLL Boeing 737-222 N62AF 71 (75) + 4 CAM-1 Captain’s Cockpit […]

Inwriting this article, I am reminded of the often-used patter by younginstructors in which the student is told to keep an eye on the enginetemperatures and pressures during the takeoff. The reality is that oil andcylinder head temperatures are slow to indicate trouble, while oil pressureneedles can flicker and vary by small amounts depending on […]