Risk Management

 As the prime winter icing season once again approaches, many ofus will be confronted with this sinister hazard. Every year, almostwithout fail, there are between 30 and 40 accidents involvingicing, about half of them fatal. As we’ve pointed out in previousissues, by heeding the pireps and taking decisive action at thefirst sign of ice, the […]

I write this with considerable personal embarrassment, in thehopes that someone may learn from it. Sunriver, Oregon, is a lovely summer and winter resort communityabout 20 miles from Mt Bachelor, a popular ski spot. We renta condo there for a week every year, during the kids’ Spring break.I usually fly down with one or both […]

During the winter, dozens of aircraft come to grief on ice andsnow-covered runways, sometimes after completing an otherwiseuneventful instrument approach. These accidents are rarely fatal but they do illustrate a harshreality of winter flying. We worry incessantly about airframeicing but slick runways, snowbanks and low visibility test thelimits of man and machine and very often, […]

Two thousand miles in an open-cockpit biplane. Richard Bach did it. Steven Coonts did it. Clearly nothing that I can’t handle! Never mind that Bach and Coonts did their biplane treks in thesummertime and carefully picked their weather. My journey wouldbe in November…the only time I could find four free days ina row to make […]

Introduction: The “Aviation Safety Initiative Review” in New Orleans(December 6-7, 1995) demonstrated the aviation community’s uncompromisinglong-term commitment to a safety standard of “zero accidents”.The two-day, industry-led meeting brought together the nation’saviation safety experts from industry, labor and government tobuild upon the initiatives identified earlier this year and toset the safety agenda for 1996. An updated […]

Interview by Aviation Consumer, 27-Oct-95 FAA Participants: Also Present: Aviation Consumer: The first area that I’d like to explore with you is the situation where Bob Hoover has recently been granted a special issuance of his second class medical certificate. Pilots are certainly happy that he has a U.S. medical again that will permit him […]

In 1980, the National Transportation Safety Board conducteda special study of air taxi operations in Alaska. The Safety Boardfound that for the study period, the rate of non-fatal air taxiaccidents in the state on the basis of hours flown was almostfive times higher than the national rate, and the fatal accidentrate was more than double […]

Traditionally, FlightSafety Internationaloffered simulator-based recurrent training only for pilots of piston twins, turboprops and jets. In 1988, however, the company inaugurated a new series of programs for single-engine pilots. FlightSafety now has single-engine simulators for Beech Bonanza 33/35/36, Cessna 210/T210/P210, and Mooney 201/205/231/252/TLS/PFM/MSE. The Beech and Cessna sims are in Wichita, while the Mooney sim […]

In 1986, FlightSafety Internationalconducted a statistical study to compare the accident rates of piston-twin pilots who had trained with FlightSafety to those who had not. This study analyzed US-registered Cessna and Piper piston twin-engine aircraft that were involved in fatal accidents during the years 1983 and 1984. Cessna 337 (centerline-thrust) aircraft were excluded. Out of […]

I never intended to buy a twin, actually. I was perusing Trade-A-Plane looking for a nice T210 or P210. But you know how it goes…it’s impossible to resist the urge to see what Lear Jets or King Airs or DC-3s are going for. And so it was that I noticed that the market for piston […]