A Disaster Waiting to Happen
As the proud owner of a new medical certificate it was time to spend a sunny Saturday at the airport hoping for a new student.The first thing I noticed, though, was a pressurized piston twin (let's...
View ArticleHabit
Readers know that I am a big believer in habits. When you're on fire your habits will take over; you're unlikely to invent a new technique.No, this is not about New Year's Resolutions.My first flight...
View ArticleOne Million Dollars
In the Austin Powers movies Dr. Evil, hopelessly behind the times, wants to hold the world at ransom for [pause] One Million Dollars. The joke is that that's not much, but for me and probably you that...
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Navigating Away
The automated observation at the airport where I fly gliders was insisting, repeatedly, that the ceiling was 6,000'AGL, but those of us who fly the ridge there knew it was below 3,000'. I was doing a...
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Doing Something About The Weather
I have long taught that the best and simplest pilot weather briefing is the "Standard Briefing." I admit that I haven't had a phone briefing in a loooong time, but the Standard Briefing option is...
View ArticleBut I had a job to do...
The experienced pilot was a successful businessman who had accumulated enough money to fill a hangar with beautiful classic airplanes, and he held a local aviation group in thrall discussing how he...
View ArticleIt just might be working...
Those two or three of you who are regular readers know that I have been working on the "Essence and Finesse" project for a long time. Put briefly, I have been exploring how the aerodynamic concepts of...
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Climb unrestricted to FL600.
We had an unusual motorglider visit yesterday: its best glide ratio is 28:1, approximately that of a Blanik L-13 glider. I mean the U-2. The pilot was on his last military flight and did a low pass...
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Message Number One. Message Number Two. Message Number Three
The messages of flight instructors contain too little information for those who know. Message number one is "right rudder,'' the reminder that at high power and low speed the left-turning-tendency is...
View ArticleTime To Slow Down
I'm in an unusual situation this summer: there's a Cessna 182 I can borrow just about any time I want it! Of course I have to pay for fuel. And that's changed some of my thinking about speed, and...
View ArticleSixty
Aviation for me has always come with an intrinsic conflict, namely that I seem to enjoy numbers and formulas more than most other pilots. Mathematics has always come with an intrinsic conflict, too,...
View ArticleCFIT
The article in this link from skybrary.aero, describes a Canadian Transportation Safety Board report on a Boeing 737 CFIT (controlloed flight into terrain) accident about 3 years ago. The airplane was...
View ArticleRadio
Radio spreads essence through the æther, causing action at a distance. The intent may be directed toward one spot on the ground, or toward one craft aloft. But the effect is universal, the call "left...
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414
Irony isn't what it used to be, but still, only a few weeks after resurrecting memories of flying a Cessna 414, one has arrived on the property, and I have been designated to train everyone in it....
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Fishing for Students
I've always felt -- well, OK, maybe even preached -- that everything a pilot does is a preparation for flight. Like many investments, though, you never know what, exactly, it is that you're preparing...
View ArticleNew New Old
I was checking a pilot out in our "new" Cessna 414. He has a lot of time in multiengine turbojets but none in cabin class piston twins, so none in the 414. We had done a lot of ground instruction on...
View ArticleNOTAM
I got this NOTAM today:!IDA 12/049 IDA SVC GROUND COM OUTLET COMMISSIONED KEY FREQ 121.7 2TIMES FUEL DELIVERY /4 TIMES SLC ARTCC /6 TIMES BOI AFSS /8 TIMES 911 DISPATCH SVC WHEN TWR CLSD...
View ArticleHarder Than They Make It Sound
Lots of people have lots of things to say about aviation safety, myself included, and it might surprise you to hear me say that I am sick of it. No, I'm not sick of the message, but I am sick of...
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It creeps up on you
I am the world's worst helicopter student: my full-time job and my other flying obligations have me flying helicopters once a week or so. This was just like my glider transition, only with the gliders...
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The Last Leg
The IFR system is not kind to the unprepared. And I suspected that I was one of the unprepared: I can count on one hand the number of times I've filed IFR in the last few years. I have been...
View ArticleTransferability
It is difficult to predict what kind of knowledge is transferable, whether in aviation or in any other realm. Sometimes it's obvious one way or the other: a Course Deviation Indicator reads the same...
View ArticleFoolin' Around
April 1 is a special day in aviation history, at least at my house, because it is the anniversary of Flight Lesson 1. My first instructor -- I remember his name but won't mention it -- quit sometime...
View Article2016 Air-to-air
Thursday afternoon I was ferrying an aircraft home, VFR at 7500ft. By habit, I was listening to Air Traffic Control even though there is no requirement to do so. Salt Lake Center is one of the few...
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Bass ackwards
The planes are tied down facing south, into the prevailing wind. To help the TSA, they are within sight of the FBO front desk. It's been that way for years.But when the large jet arrived the winds...
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