Flight Safety

During early WW II I lived in Canada where I was a young teen agemember of an Air Cadet Squadron. We built and flew an Englishdesigned Dagling Primary Glider. We towed the disassembled glider ona trailer behind a 1928 Packard roadster to a rather steeply slopinghill that had a flat area going back for a […]

AVweb readers come in all shapes and sizes. When we asked you to send us yourown tales of flight training, we were soon flooded with responses. We read them all, andthe best ones are published here. We hope you’ll get the same kick we do from readingthem! The offer, by the way, is a standing […]

I remember my first flight in a Level D simulator. It was abusiness jet, and I was lost among the electronic flat-panel displays, auto-throttles, andflight management systems. Totally “where-the-heck’s-the-airspeed-indicator”lost. Apparently I wasn’t the first person to stare confusedly at the glass cockpit like itwas a wall of televisions at an electronics store. “That’s why you […]

Let’s take a shot some of the common aviation myths and “Old Wives’ Tales” (OWTs) so common in this wacky business, some of which I intend to make the main subject of future columns. Many people equate a gift of gab, gray hair, hours aloft, or years in the business with pilot quality. High-time, or […]

AVweb subscribers are invited to share their own most interesting primary flight training experiences with the rest of the AVweb community. To participate, simply write a 500- to 1,500-word story about how you learned to fly, and submit it via e-mail to training@avweb.com. If you care to attach a photo or three, that’s even better. […]

Now that you’re enrolling in flight training, it’salmost like being back in school again. There is one significant difference, however. Nowyou have a choice. When you were a kid in grammar or high school your teachers were assigned to you: thatwas it, cut and dried, no argument. Now as a prospective aviation student and customer,you […]

Using mnemonics is an effective way to learn airspaceclassifications, and nothing suits Class B airspace better than the letter B. Class Bairspace surrounds “Big” airports in a shape that looks like a big upside downwedding cake. Class B airspace isn’t reserved only for big airplanes, however. Flying toand from a Class B airport or transitioning […]

It had been my intention to make each column entirely different, but given some of the questions and responses to my first column, “Throw Away That Stupid Checklist.” I think a follow-up is in order. Apparently, a lot of people read the headline, or the lead, or scanned the column quickly, and came to some […]

Read the NTSB report here. Eyewitness Account After 33 years of accident-free flying, I experiencedthe worst horror I have yet seen around 1:30 PST this Thanksgiving Day. I had flown theTwin Comanche from Mariposa to Carson City, a trip I have made many times over the years,to pick up my brother for the Thanksgiving holiday. […]

First, welcome to this, my first column for AVweb. I’m free to say what I want, without fear of censorship and only enough editing to keep me from embarrassing myself with major errors in spelling or grammar. That’s nice, but it does mean I can’t blame my editor for content, and all remaining mistakes are […]