Flight Safety

Evelyn “Bobbi” Trout was born onJanuary 7, 1906, in Greenup, Ill. She saw her first airplane at age 12 and knew right awaythat she wanted to fly. In 1920, the family moved to Los Angeles and everyone worked atthe family’s “filling station.” On December 27, 1922, one of her customersoffered her a ride in his […]

WhileI was at EAA AirVenture ’99 at Oshkosh this year, I ran into a friend of minenamed W. Roger Mullins, better known as Judge Mullins. For those of you who maynot remember or know, he’s the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) for the NationalTransportation Safety Board (NTSB) who restored Bob Hoover’s medical certificatewhen the FAA first […]

I hate what seems to be the officialFAA-approved way of handling short and soft fields, and it’s past time I yelled about it.There seems to be a good deal of confusion in the pilot ranks, and even among some CFIs,over the differences between short-field and soft-field technique, and I’dlike to comment on that, too. A […]

Lockheed Hudson In my career I have flown with many flying instructors, and likemost pilots, I remember my first flight quite vividly. It was in a Lockheed Hudson flownby Captain Harry Purvis AFC, and which took place at Camden near Sydney in 1949. Harry wasa highly-experienced and well-known pilot who had flown with Charles Kingsford […]

It’sbeen a very satisfying month in the Pilot’s Lounge. Summer is spooling down andthe temperatures are dropping, so our airplanes are actually starting to performon takeoff. Dave, tail wheel pilot, one of the Lounge regulars, and owner of aHusky, just passed his check ride for his instrument rating. Doing such a ratingin a tandem, tail […]

Wayne Handley was born March 26, 1939, in Carmel, Calif.After a career in Naval aviation, he built a successful crop dusting business in Salinas,Calif. In 1983, after years of performing for unappreciative grapes and lettuce, hedecided to enter the International Aerobatic Club competition. Finishing 20th out of 21was humbling enough to make him serious about […]

Bob Pond was born in May of 1924 in Edina,Minn. As WWII wound down, he, like other naval aviatiors, had his eyes set on a careerwith the airlines. Instead, he went back to school and worked part-time in the familybusiness, Advance Machine Company. The landscape of Mom and Pop grocery stores were beingreplaced by supermarkets […]

Al Haynes was born in Dallas, Texas, in1932. After four years in the Navy he joined United Airlines, where he rose through theranks for the next 35 years. He never aspired to be a test pilot, but he became one onJuly 19, 1989, enroute from Denver to Chicago. That’s when a 12″ pie-shaped sectionof fanblade […]

Evelyn Bryan Johnson was born Evelyn Stoneon November 4, 1909 in Corbin, Kentucky. She graduated with honors from Tennessee WesleyanCollege and later attended the University of Tennessee where she met and married WyattJennings Bryan. In 1944, while living in Jefferson City, Tennessee, with W. J. serving inthe Air Corps, an ad in the paper for […]

Bill Dana was born November 3, 1930 inPasadena, Calif. He graduated the U. S. Military Academy at West Point and served fouryears in the U. S. Air Force. He joined NASA on October 1, 1958, the day it was founded,which makes him NASA’s first official employee. As a test pilot he flew the triple-sonicYF-12 (precursor […]