Proficiency

In his influential book, Stick and Rudder, Wolfgang Langewiesche states the rudder “. . . causes the greatest difficulty for beginners,” and “. . . even the more experienced pilot often has trouble using it correctly.” Commenting on improper rudder use as a contributing factor in accidents, he states, “In the typical fatal accident, which […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s web site at www.ntsb.org. Final […]

Just before I hurt my foot, I was at the dropzone sitting across the lunch table from a friend who was filling in his logbook, complete with little stickman icons showing the jumps we’d done for the day. I couldn’t resist. “Dude, seriously?” He looked startled, not realizing that my comment was really a defensive […]

Fall conjures memories of bright blue skies, cool mornings and generally good daytime flying. But in aviation, looks can be deceiving. New air masses are on the move, the jet stream begins to flex its muscle over much of the United States, fronts are marching southward, and there’s likely a tropical storm in the Caribbean […]

Compared to landing, taking off is relatively simple. Our instructor lets us make the first takeoff of our very first flying lesson—or at least makes us think we made the takeoff. If everything goes right, it’s easy. But how do you know everything is going right? And how do you know what to do in […]

Our body is traditionally said to have five senses—all of which, it can be argued, are involved in piloting an airplane. The problem occurs when the inputs from two or more contradict each other thereby causing an erroneous mental picture. During instrument training most of us have experienced “the leans” where our eyes convey one […]

You’re in the airplane, strapped in and about to start the checklist when it hits you—filling the right half of the windshield is The Hangar. The one in the famous picture. The picture showing a Maule M-4 blasting out the hangar’s open door in full and fearless flight. Right there is where the legendary B. […]

Hundreds of pilots filled a theater in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on Wednesday to watch a preview of Sully, the much-hyped account of the Miracle on the Hudson. There were some minor quibbles but Sandy Dubrow, who was among the pilots, told AVweb’s Russ Niles the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Duration: 4:30 File Size: 4.7MB download […]

My brother slipped me a piece of paper on which he’d jotted three numbers: 260, 240 and 180. If you haven’t guessed, they’re weights. Add me and the load is 860 pounds well-marbled (not 170-pound), above-average Americans. Add full tanks, 56 gallons of fuel and we would approach gross weight. I had yet to add […]

The producers of “Sully,” the movie based on the ditching of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009, are apparently so confident of its authenticity they’ve invited a theater full of pilots to a preview screening on Sept. 7, two days before it opens to general audiences. Warner Bros. has given free tickets to […]