Technique

The Aviation Safety Reporting System, ASRS, is a means of confidentially and anonymously reporting unsafe conditions—including your own actions—in aviation, generally without fear of FAA enforcement. Most of us are at least somewhat aware of the ASRS program, but few of us really understand how it works. This is an important program that is of […]

You’ve had your instrument rating for a couple of years by now. The first year you didn’t have any trouble keeping current to fly IFR—you were out there just about every week “flying in the system” as you called it. The new hadn’t worn off your rating; you knew that you were just a baby […]

I’ve amended the details a bit to preserve anonymity. The pilot and his family came to grief on a flight that was forecast to be VFR. There was a slow-moving warm front approaching, but it appeared the 150-nm trip could be completed before conditions worsened. Friends of the pilot indicated he had intended to launch […]

Last month we began our occasional series on personal flight simulators with an introduction to the world of flight simulators and, more specifically, the ones that a pilot might reasonably have at home that are capable of doing a good job of simulating the airplane the sim owner usually flies—which means matching the cockpit, including […]

One of the comments made by some pilots when a group of them gather is that their spouses or significant others and family members won’t fly with them. While riding in little airplanes is certainly not to every person’s taste—and rising above the planet does generate a concern about returning to it less than gracefully—some […]

For pure fun in aviation, not much beats flying seaplanes. The pilots I know who have found room in their aeronautical budget to get a seaplane rating have been uniform in telling me that they had a ball doing so and were glad they did it. As winter weather starts to retreat from the northern […]

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have proposed a possible fix to relieve the increasing noise complaints from neighbors of Boston’s busy Logan Airport — if airplanes on departure just slowed down by about 30 knots, it would significantly reduce the noise at the surface. Logan is one of many airports nationwide where the […]

 Editors Note: This article originally ran in our sister publication,IFRmagazine in the June 1998 issue to recognize the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift. With the 70th anniversary approaching, and with the passing of so many of the veterans who acted courageously to supply the citizens of Berlin, we are running it again to […]

Red Bull Air Race selected the VectorNav VN-300 Dual Antenna GNSS-Aided Inertial Navigation System (INS) as the primary source of aircraft telemetry data for the Master Class raceplanes participating in the Red Bull Air Race World Championship. The February inaugural event of the 2018 season saw the VN-300 used for the first time in all […]