Probable Cause

This article originally appeared in IFR Refresher, Mar. 2006. Sometimes as the day grows longer we may become impatient to get home. If we are in an automobile and forget to close a door or discover a fault related to maintenance that was just completed, we can pull over and fix the problem or return […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Safety, Feb. 2005. The NTSB has several (too many, actually …) categories it uses to classify aviation incidents and accidents. Among them is the catch-all phrase “improper IFR,” which the Board usually uses to describe a pilot executing procedures you won’t find in the Aeronautical Information Manual. But there […]

This article originally appeared in IFR Refresher, Feb. 2006. The Northeast winter weather was normal for February when the pilot of a Rockwell 500S Shrike Commander departed Naples, Fla., for Newport State Airport (KUUU) in Rhode Island. He had flight planned a stop in Wilmington, N.C., and the first leg of the flight went without […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Safety, Jan. 2005. Scud running is the time-honored practice of trying to stay VFR down low between weather and terrain while motoring off to a destination. Generally, it involves a VFR-only pilot flying in good daytime visibility over flat terrain at an altitude that will clear charted obstacles. While […]

This article originally appeared in IFR Refresher, Jan. 2006. The weather is what we all worry about when we are planning an IFR cross-country flight. There are many decisions to be made before and after takeoff, and the wrong decision anywhere along the way can lead to disaster.Some pilots, when they reach the instrument approach […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Safety, Dec. 2004. Pilots have many different phobias when it comes to flying personal airplanes. Some cringe at the thought of flying IFR over mountains, whether in a single or a twin. Others refuse to fly over large bodies of water, choosing to skirt Lake Michigan via the Gary/Chicago/Milwaukee […]

This article originally appeared in IFR Refresher, Dec. 2005. What do you do when the controller who is vectoring you to the final approach fails to put you in the proper position?In the summer of 2004, a pilot flying a Piper Cherokee Six from Springfield, Ky., to Hot Springs/Memorial Field (KHOT) in Hot Springs, Ark., […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Safety, Nov. 2004. There are two weather phenomena that the average personal airplane just doesn’t handle well: thunderstorms and airframe icing. No one in their right mind — except researchers — would intentionally fly an airplane into the teeth of a mature thunderstorm; avoiding that potential is why we […]

This article originally appeared in IFR Refresher, Nov. 2005. The fuel systems on some piston-engine airplanes can be quite complicated and require a great deal of the pilot’s attention during flight. Pilots must maintain an awareness of which fuel tanks the engine or engines are feeding from, as well as an idea of how much […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Safety, Oct. 2004. A lot of technology is available to piston pilots these days. This includes certified glass-panel displays in new airplanes as well as gee-whiz, almost-real-time weather graphics displayed on the same laptop computer used to play MP3s over the ship’s audio system. Some of the portable products […]