Flight Safety

In 1950 I was asked by Dean Bill Bender to take a sabbatical frommy studies at Harvard College. Various extracurricular activitiesseemed far more enticing than the books my family was paying bigbucks for me to study. During a term forcibly spent at home on the island of Martha’s Vineyard this wayward student took a courseHarvard […]

“I want to be a pilot when I grow up, because it is a fun and easyjob to do. That is why there are so many pilots flying today. “Pilots don’t need much school, they just have to learn numbers sothey can read the instruments. I guess they should be able to readroad maps so […]

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 […]