Risk Management

The FAA and I don’t agree on something — well, more than one something — but I think this one thing is rather important. It’s the way they wrote the Practical Test Standards. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I agree with the idea of the PTS and overall, it’s a good thing. It lets everyone […]

The July 1999 issue of AOPA Pilot magazine featured an article by Editor-at-Large Thomas A. Horne titled, “In-Flight Emergencies – Ditching – Putting wings in the water.” According to AVweb‘s Special Projects editor Doug Ritter, who is also publisher and editor of the Equipped to Survive Web site, Horne’s article includes much valuable information on […]

A story currently unfolding on a maillist that I subscribe to isreason to review preparations for winter flying. It seems that a group of people headedout on a flight a few days ago and has not reported in. They disappeared from radarsomewhere in the Sierras. It has been cold up there and the chances of […]

Timeafter time, you put the landing gear switch in the “down” position, wait a fewseconds, and are rewarded with those three reassuring green down-and-locked indicatorlights. Then it happens…no green light! You stare at the lights in a few moments ofdisbelief and denial. You feel a knot growing in your stomach. And then you realize youhave […]

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. […]

Severaldecades ago, my primary flight instructor taught me that being a safe pilot meant stayingon the ground when the weather didn’t look good. When I got my instrument rating a fewyears later, my CFII cautioned me against flying when icing or thunderstorms wereanticipated. Such advice may be okay for pilots who fly for recreation, but […]

It almost goes without saying, and most of us ought to do it byhabit, but make sure the aircraft is always trimmed. Obviously, this makes it mucheasier when something untoward happens. The flying skills they have learned, and their confidence in those skills, will atrophyquickly unless they are allowed to practice regularly. This does not […]

My husband, Doug (AVweb’s NewsEditor) tried for over a decade to get me to take a Pinch-Hitter course, to no avail. Ihad a million and one excuses and used them frequently. I just did not want to learn tofly or anything remotely connected with learning to fly. Flying was his thing. It was agreat way […]

Flying over FairbanksAlaska in their Piper Super Cruiser with his wife Joan, John Chalupnik suffered a massivebrain hemorrhage. Joan suddenly found herself Pilot In Command. She wasn’t really a pilot,but providentially, she had attended the AOPA Air Safety Foundation’s Pinch-Hitter programjust the day before. After regaining control of the plane she called for help on […]

91.527 Operating in icing conditions.    (a) No pilot may takeoff an airplane that has –       (1) Frost, snow, or ice adhering to any propeller, windshield, or powerplant installation or to an airspeed, altimeter, rate of climb, or flight attitude instrument system;       (3) Any frost adhering to the wings or stabilizing or control surfaces, unless that […]