Risk Management

When considering how to crash, my first bit of advice is don’t do it. Since the reality of any flight is that things can go wrong, that isn’t particularly helpful, I know. What can go wrong? Your crankshaft can break, your fuel lines can clog or, if you are a damn fool, you can run […]

It’s been my good fortune to work and socialize with a number of test pilots during my career. There has been a lot of publicity and hype about test pilots ever since the Montgolfier brothers made the first flight of an aircraft in 1783-some of it has even been true. My own perspective is that […]

Peace and quiet is something that every parent has longed for at some time or another. A lack of chatter is not so great when in the clouds and rain-being vectored for a parallel ILS approach to a major airport like Atlanta. You instantly miss the constant stream of quick-paced banter of the controller. It […]

Only a small percentage of the controller work force in the system today-or for that matter, in the past-are or have been pilots. Controllers are taught to perform the duties and provide the services that are outlined in the controller’s bible, the FAA Order 7110.65, Air Traffic Control Manual. While they have been made aware […]

Welcome to the start of the Holiday Season-Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas, New Year-the highest stress time of the year. Welcome to the season of intense pressure, spoken and unspoken, to make the flight you’re planning to be with your family. Before you start saying that Scrooge was the more caring member of my family, the point […]

Boots and weeping wings are fine as far as they go, but it’s also nice to have some means of automatically detecting and alarming the presence of ice in flight. A company called SafeFlight is out with a new device that does just that. view on YouTube

The NTSB said Wednesday a “punitive culture and inadequate safety management” along with poor weather caused the crash of an Alaska Department of Public Safety helicopter on March 30, 2013. The single-engine Eurocopter crashed in wooded and snow-covered terrain east of Talkeetna, killing the pilot, another state trooper and the snowmobiler they had just rescued.The […]

Losing people in a flight program is gut-wrenchingly hard and today I feel for all of the folks at Scaled Composites. None of them set out to lose a friend and injure another when they prepared to launch SpaceShipTwo last Friday. Their goal was the same as every person or team that has ever taken […]

Bored as I sometimes am with Aviation Hall of Fame nominees and Lifetime Achievement Awards, to amuse myself, I’m inventing a new category: Best filming of a gear-up landing. I’m calling it the Oh-S&^t Award and hope to announce it every year about this time. I won’t lack for examples because there are (a) a […]

The NTSB has released its preliminary report on the Oct. 7 fatal crash of a Cal Fire S-2F3AT tanker that was engaged in fighting the Dog Rock forest fire in Yosemite National Park, California. The NTSB reports that the crew of an aircraft that was operating as a controller for the firefighting operation and orbiting […]