Flight Safety

Every pilot out there is going to hate mefor this, but I cannot help but tell this story. To brag. To flaunt my pleasureshamelessly. Please, cut me a little slack, for this has been one of the most wonderfulachievements of my flying career. I cannot stop grinning, every time I think of it. Adream has […]

The July 1999 issue of AOPA Pilot magazine featured an article by Editor-at-Large Thomas A. Horne titled, “In-Flight Emergencies – Ditching – Putting wings in the water.” According to AVweb‘s Special Projects editor Doug Ritter, who is also publisher and editor of the Equipped to Survive Web site, Horne’s article includes much valuable information on […]

It’slate at night in the pilot’s lounge. Outside the windows, the pilot-activatedrunway and taxi lights are dark, silently awaiting the next airplane – althougha propeller hasn’t turned in several hours. Everyone left quite a while ago;some inquired as to whether I was going, and accepted my “a bit later”before becoming receding taillights. There is but […]

Sometime ago an AVweb subscriber, Ms. Annette Wright, requested a column onthe subject of night VFR. We here in the U.S. are fortunate in that there is nospecific rating required for a pilot to fly VFR at night. However, thissituation does not prevail throughout the rest of the world. In fact, in manycountries an instrument […]

WhatHave You Got In Your Back Pocket? The Brits have such a good phrase for thistime of year, “high summer.” The days are still long, the Sun burnsthrough us on the ground so we fly as much as we can and wish we were flyingmore. A few of the pilots here in the Lounge just […]

AVweb: How are you, Mrs. Garvey? GARVEY: I’m very good, very, very well, thank you. I’m looking forward toOshkosh. AVweb: We’re looking forward to seeing you. GARVEY: Thanks. The secretary is joining us this year, which is a nice treat,and I believe Congressman [Todd] Tiarht (R-KS) [the Congressman from Wichita -Ed.] is also coming. He […]

In17 years as a designated pilot examiner, I administered over 4,000 flight testsfor a variety of certificates and ratings. During that time, I was witness to agreat many unusual performances by all kinds of applicants. Some were humorous,some tragic, but all were interesting. I wanted to take this opportunity to sharea few. “I’ll Take A […]

Single-pilot IFR is a subject near and dear to my heart,because so much of my own flying falls into that category. Back in 1966 when I startedflying serious IFR in single-engine aircraft, a relatively small percentage of privatepilots were instrument-rated, and most considered single-pilot IFR (SPIFR) to be a riskyproposition, something on the order of […]

Hot Fun In The Summertime? It has been a pretty good month in thePilot’s Lounge. Summer is here and the airplanes are beautiful. For the secondyear in a row we have had great weather, so the old saw, “what comes aftertwo days of rain in Michigan? Monday” is not holding up. As one of thepilots […]

Now that previous columns have littered the runway with theory and attempted to explain manifold pressure, propeller RPM, and mixture, I’d like to present some suggestions for in-flight techniques to extract better performance from these engines. Some of it will be a little repetitive from prior columns in an attempt to make this column more […]