Flight Safety

Itwas a grubby day outside the Pilot’s Lounge here at the virtual airport. The VFRstudents had been scrubbed but a few of the IFR students were out flying withtheir instructors getting some actual experience in the clag. Most of theregulars were inside, sitting in the big easy chairs because someone had dug upa portable television […]

Charles Edward McGee was bornDecember 7, 1919, in Cleveland, Ohio. His mother died giving birth to his sisterwhen he was about a year old. On his 22nd birthday Japan attacked Pearl Harbor,and WWII soon interrupted his studies at the University of Illinois. McGee wassworn into the enlisted reserve on October 26, 1942, and entered Army […]

Flight training has been consistently running 10 to20 years behind the state of the art. A prime example of this is the way I wastrained in the early 1940s. Aircraft engines produced back in the early 1930s(and before) were so undependable that every time one took off you could toss acoin as to whether or […]

Oxygen generators are improperly placed in a forwardcargo compartment. A fire starts, and the airplane is destroyed. No one waskilled when this happened to an American Trans Air DC-10 on the ground inChicago in 1986, but the lesson went unlearned. Ten years later, oxygengenerators fueled the fire that led to the ValuJet Flight 592 crash […]

Check out AVweb’s “Airmanship” section, where Paul offersan article about deadly spiralsthat could save your life. Paul A. Soderlind was born August6, 1923, in Billings, Mont. He took his first flight lesson at age 12, earnedhis private certificate on his 18th birthday (which was then the CAA minimumage), and earned his Commercial and Instructor ratings […]

First,a little housekeeping. For those interested in some of the old books I reprint,there have been several changes. Be sure to check out my list of availablepublications. Also, I am often asked “When are you gonna do the the turbocolumn?” I’ve now got a turbonormalizer from TornadoAlley Turbo in Ada, Oklahoma, and as soon as […]

Itis only May, but here in the Pilot’s Lounge at the virtual airport, a few of thepilots are already making plans to go to Oshkosh, Wis., to the annual EAAAirVenture blowout the end of July. Some are checking out their camping gear andperusing Sport Aviation magazine to see what is going on and when they […]

Jerome C. Stannard was one of the “quiet heroes” to survive thesecond world war. He completed 76 combat missions flying the Jug (the RepublicP-47 Thunderbolt) in the U.S. Army Air Corps (predecessor to the United StatesAir Force). USAAC Cadet Stannard in 1943 When he returned home and separated from the Army – like manyothers – […]

Radar traffic information service — commonly known as VFR flightfollowing — is a service provided by air traffic control (ATC) and available to all VFRpilots which can enhance your flying safety. While receiving flight following, you’ll bein radio contact with a radar controller at a Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) orAir Route Traffic Control Center […]

Frankly, I hated the massive rewrite ofPart 61 that went into effect on August 4, 1997. No one asked me, but I didn’t think itneeded an overhaul. A few minor tweaks to clear up a few poor areas would have done verynicely. It changed rules and requirements that had been in effect for decades, from […]