Risk Management

One summer, while flying over the largest wilderness in the lower 48 states, I heard a radio call: “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. White Cessna… [broken and inaudible transmission].” I heard just enough to understand something bad was happening, but not where. I repeatedly tried to hail the aircraft to get them to repeat their location, to […]

I received a call from the owner of a turbocharged, high-performance single who lives in the Great Lakes region, well-known for icing conditions in late autumn, winter and early spring. His airplane was equipped with an aftermarket TKS-style ice protection system and was not FAA-approved for flight in known icing (FIKI). The pilot wanted to […]

Humans are really good at rationalizing. We do it all the time, every time when we cut corners, break rules or ignore evidence in pursuit of a successful outcome. We continue because it often has no consequences. The thing about rationalizing, though, is it can change our behavior. What once seemed wrong starts to feel […]

Thinking back to my traditional aviation weather courses, I realized they didn’t address intense wind events where the agency of high wind all by itself wreaks its own special form of havoc. This year [2020] there were numerous high wind events — several haboobs in Arizona, a derecho in the Midwest, and wind-driven fires in […]

Recently I got a request from an instrument student. He needed help fielding the inevitable systems and scenario-based questions about the G1000’s many failure modes. I authored an article on that topic in 2010 for IFR, but it was insufficient given the depth and breadth of questions he could face. So I added that he […]

Since starting in 1984, I’ve logged over 1800 hours in more than 45 aircraft types. As much of this has been in the past four years under the employ of a major avionics shop, the recent experience factor provides a bit of confidence, especially since I’m quite familiar with most avionics offered today. A trip […]

The FAA’s Airplane Flying Handbook (AFH, FAA-H-8083-3C) describes energy management as “the process of planning, monitoring, and controlling altitude and airspeed,” which seems straightforward enough. Using the available tools, primarily pitch and power, we’re expected to attain and maintain “desired vertical flightpath-airspeed profiles, detect, correct and prevent “unintentional altitude-airspeed deviations” and prevent “irreversible deceleration and/or sink rate” […]

We’re good pilots—by and large. Getting our certificates and ratings wasn’t easy. Face it, we sweat blood training to master the skills, knowledge and judgment needed to cause an inanimate object to rise into an often unforgiving sky and return to the planet not only safely, but with some degree of panache.  In the process […]

One of the great joys of flying is a routine flight. I’m not referring to a flight that went as expected, which undeniably is the greatest joy, I’m talking about flying a routine route. If you hop in your plane on a Saturday afternoon to fly to your favorite $100 hamburger location and get a […]

As we sift through the NTSB accident reports each month, we’re consistently finding landing gear mishaps that might have been avoided if the pilot spent a little extra time inspecting the gear during the preflight, or simply knew how to recognize potential problem areas before launching. In this quick-hitter tech article, we’ll look at the […]