Technique

There’s normal, and then there’s normal. Which is to say that while much of aviation relies on routine procedures and aircraft configurations, among other things, there are exceptions to most norms. For example, the FAA long ago declared a “normal” landing to be one with an airplane’s wing flaps, if any, fully deployed. That’s not […]

Where I come from, we call it a “Discovery Flight.” It’s a short flight that gives a non-pilot an introduction to the flight school and flying in general. “You’ll take the controls!” is a time-honored way for flight schools to market the flights, which I really enjoy doing. Some of the customers have never been […]

Flying is a great joy. There is plenty of airspace on the planet for all of us to go our own way and still have miles between us and another aircraft. You could probably say the same thing about driving if we didn’t have to follow the roads. But similarly, a good portion of us […]

A shipment of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to Bhutan was shaken and stirred after an unorthodox approach and landing at Paro in the high mountainous country. The Intra Asia Boeing 737-300 freighter departed Kolkata, India, last Tuesday for Paro and someone on the flight deck shot cellphone video that’s lit up aviation forums. The Aviation Herald […]

Most of us spend our time aloft droning along in straight-and-level flight. For the typical pilot, turns are reserved for the traffic pattern or flying an approach, and occasionally for entering a holding pattern or performing a course reversal. And we rarely exceed 30 degrees of bank. On one hand, that’s okay, since our relative […]

In the April issue of Aviation Safety, we explored the theories of generating lift from Bernoulli and Newton, and how neither of them alone fully explains how airfoils work. Bernoulli’s basic understanding of low pressure above an airfoil is correct, but the math is wrong and his assumptions are faulty. He also doesn’t explain inverted […]

It’s not every day a pilot gets a police escort for takeoff but a Cessna 172 owned by the East Tennessee Pilots Club had motorcycles and cars with lights blazing for its short hop to Island Home Airport near Knoxville on Wednesday morning. The pilot reportedly made a precautionary landing on I-640 because he was […]

The line between a crash and a hard landing can be pretty thin and there’s an Atlas Air Boeing 747-400 on the ramp at Shanghai Pudong Airport with runway rash (at least) on three cowlings that might define that. According to the Aviation Herald, the aircraft was flying for DHL from Seoul to Shanghai and […]

Most everyone appreciates pilot reports. Two of the most important are turbulence and icing. But both require a degree of judgment with respect to the severity. It’s great to hear from a pilot 50 miles ahead of you that the ride is “smooth.” But what if he says that it’s moderate chop? Is his “moderate” […]

I had to fly a go-around the other day. My instructor and I were landing in my Debonair at a familiar airport on a gusty day after 1.5 hours of instrument work. Although I was accustomed to the airport and the visual approach, I had forgotten how windy conditions at this particular runway could wreak […]