Technique

A pilot who had twice extensively damaged airplanes by flying into thunderstorms tries it a third time. This time he doesn’t live to tell about his own foolishness. Remember back to when we were student pilots, with maybe 20 hours under our belts? We all asked our instructors “How many hours do you have?” Even […]

Advances in technologies and regulations mean the best mix of airplanes, simulators and other resources also is changing and will enhance your training. In recent years, the general aviation community has complained our activity has grown too complicated and, as a result, applicants for the private pilot certificate now average about 70 or so hours […]

“Kick the tires, light the fires.” So goes a popular, flippant saying about preflight inspections. Most of the time, that’s what we and various accident reports would label an “inadequate preflight inspection.” Sometimes-immediately after stopping long enough to drop off or load a passenger, for example-it might be adequate. After all, we just flew it […]

Premature cylinder problems are epidemic. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear or read about an aircraft owner having to pull one or several cylinders at annual due to poor compression with leakage past the exhaust valve. More often than not, the afflicted airplane is powered by a fuel-injected TCM engine. The cause […]

One of the hardest parts of flying instruments is making the transition from on-the-gauges to visual flight at the missed approach point. Visual and instrument pilots also have difficulty at times landing in the proper touchdown zone because they’re too fast or too slow on final. One way to make safe, consistent landings, and to […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Safety, Sep. 2007. You are a skilled, proficient and responsible pilot. You do everything in your power to avoid dangerous situations, but there are a few unavoidable moments during each flight where, if the unthinkable happened, you’d be left with few options. Flying is, after all, an exercise in […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Consumer magazine, Nov. 2006. It’s never a good time for an inflight fire. Stoked by fuel or an electrical short, this nasty brand of emergency is near the top of most pilots’ list of nightmares. But a cabin fire’s consequences can be mitigated by using a smoke hood, which […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Safety, Sep. 2005. A small plane crashes in a remote area, with no hope of rescue for several days. The survivors know basic survival techniques but have only rudimentary first-aid skills. How does the pilot-in-command sort, assess and treat injuries when the first-aid kit just went up in smoke? […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Safety, Mar. 2005. A little anxiety is perfectly normal when an airplane begins rotating toward the ground in a 60-degree nose-down attitude. But the thought of spin training need not cause you to break out in a cold sweat. In fact, many pilots find that the actual spin experience, […]

This article originally appeared in IFR magazine, Mar. 2005. Accident reports can make enlightening reading, but some of the NTSB reports from prior to 1983 are a bit cryptic. Like this one, from a Boeing 747 accident at Chicago O’Hare: DCA79AA009TYPE OF ACCIDENT: COLLISION WITH AIRCRAFT, BOTH ON GROUNDPHASE OF OPERATION: LANDING ROLLPROBABLE CAUSE(S): TRAFFIC […]