Proficiency

A shipment of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to Bhutan was shaken and stirred after an unorthodox approach and landing at Paro in the high mountainous country. The Intra Asia Boeing 737-300 freighter departed Kolkata, India, last Tuesday for Paro and someone on the flight deck shot cellphone video that’s lit up aviation forums. The Aviation Herald […]

A good pilot is always learning and practicing. Whether your aviating is geared toward a ratings-oriented career or just going for the occasional $100 hamburger, we all should put some effort into maintaining proficiency and enhancing related knowledge. If you’re stuck at home with nothing to do and can’t fly, how can you spend the […]

Most of us think of the autopilot as a modern invention, but it predates World War I. That perception may be because it has only become ubiquitous in more recent times. All IFR pilots take pride in their manual instrument flying skills, and rightly so. Smoothly and exactly maneuvering an aircraft down the ILS to […]

The line between a crash and a hard landing can be pretty thin and there’s an Atlas Air Boeing 747-400 on the ramp at Shanghai Pudong Airport with runway rash (at least) on three cowlings that might define that. According to the Aviation Herald, the aircraft was flying for DHL from Seoul to Shanghai and […]

When we reported that Dr. Jon Weiswasser flew into New York’s Big Three airports in April (and neglected to acknowledge that he’s a vascular surgeon in addition to being a drummer for an Eagles tribute band) it was a novel and kind of surreal thing to report. But since then, thousands of GA pilots have […]

Delta pilots have been told they have guaranteed jobs for at least the next year if they’ll agree to a 15 percent cut in their minimum pay. John Laughter, Delta’s senior VP of flight operations, told pilots in a memo the company is “committed to preventing involuntary furloughs for as many, if not all, Delta […]

Pakistan media is reporting Pakistan International Airlines Flight PK8303 landed gear up and the crew muscled it back into the air before it crashed on a second landing attempt, killing 97 of 99 people aboard on Friday. According to reports gathered by the Aviation Herald, the A320 slid on its nacelles at the airport in […]

One would think that a fairly simple recurrent training requirement established by the FAA over 40 years ago would be a ho-hum thing by now. One would be wrong. The FAR Part 61.56 requirement to fly with an instructor biennially (every two years) and receive an endorsement of a pilot’s basic fitness for flight is […]

A private helicopter pilot in the U.K. has been penalized about $2,000 and has had his pilot license suspended since July for an on-air rant berating an air traffic controller. Businessman Joel Tobias dressed down controller Andrea Tolley for what he alleged was an unreasonable delay in answering his initial radio call to her at […]

We’ve all told apocryphal stories of pilots falling so far behind the airplane that they were only holding on by the static wicks. Amusing as these tales may be, falling behind is a major cause of accidents and incidents. There are two reasons for finding yourself in this unenviable situation: Either the airplane is going […]