Flight Training Posts

Published in 1997, Rinker Buck let the memories of his cross-country flight from New Jersey to California in a 1946 Piper PA-11 age for 30 years before sharing them in Flight of Passage. Like a fine single-malt whisky, time has refined the raw spiri…

The bait dangled by AARP Studios was the 10-minute Reporting for Duty documentary about Lt. Carey Lohrenz, who in 1994 became one of the first female aviators to fly the F-14 Tomcat. The latest of eight episodes so far produced, the YouTube channel …

Reprinted courtesy AOPA Turbine Pilot – illustration by John HolmBy Rob MarkIf you’ve yet to endure the two or three solid weeks of grueling classroom and simulator training known as initial, you will, if you decide to call the cockpi…

Aviation is not exempt from the aphorism that what goes around comes around. When humans first flew on powered wings, their fields of operation were unimproved, what military aviation now describes as austere. (While the people who selected this wo…

As a word merchant focused on subjects aeronautical, people often ask if I am a pilot. Because a pilot certificate does not die (unless the holder surrenders or the FAA revokes it), my answer is always affirmative (pilot speak for you betcha!). Usua…

Some days, opening my email inbox is like Christmas. This day’s present was from Ryan Short, a reader, aerial photographer, and part-time flight instructor who works with students by appointment through Texas Tailwheel Flight Training. Flying …

The immediate and long-term consequences of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruling on Warbird Adventures, Inc., et. al. v. FAA, which redefined the educational mission of flight training as the “carriage of persons for com…

When preparing for a flight, it would be a safe assumption that pilots never consider their dominant learning style when ferreting out the information for their preflight weather briefing. Time, technology, and the recently published Advisory Circul…

In an Air Facts article, “Are Pilots Still Navigating?”, Glenn Mitchell reconfirmed an observation I’d made back in early 1990s, the dawn of the GPS era—for those so equipped, preflight and in-light navigation consisted of entering…

Good pilots become better pilots with experience. One of an aviator’s top hurdles on the way to gaining the best experience is becoming a practical risk manager. When does a flight make sense considering the fuel available, the cargo, the weat…

A freshly minted CFI friend of mine called me recently almost completely out of breath with the exciting news that he’d managed to grab a few hours of loggable time in the right seat of an old Citation II, a bird that certainly turned out to b…

If you’ve already earned a Private Pilot certificate — a PPL they call it in some other parts of the world — you’ll probably remember those final words of encouragement from the government official who oversaw the checkride … …

Unless you’re an aviation history geek or just a pilot who resides in Illinois, you might not have heard of Octave Chanute. I only knew the name early on when I joined the Air Force because there was a Base in southern Illinois named for the f…

Pursing my eclectic interests, the library emailed a curbside pickup notice for David Rakoff’s Half Empty, as in the pessimist’s assessment of a glass vessel whose volume is divided between some unknown liquid and the ambient atmosphere.…

Aviation danger zones exist in all phases of flight, and they most often catch people on the ground, especially when another task attenuates their situational awareness. Almost walking into a stationary prop protruding from the Innovation Showcase b…

In the cover feature of the September 18, 2019 New York Times Magazine, William Langeweishe presents a cogent, comprehensive, and nuanced answer to its interrogative headline, “What Really Brought Down the Boeing 737 Max?” The subhead su…

It’s tempting to forge a synonymous connection between flying cars and urban air mobility (UAM). That would be unfair because, for a number of reasons, the latter has a viable future where entrepreneurs have unsuccessfully been developing, pro…

There’s no denying that general aviation is enduring an uncertain transition from its rose-colored past to a foggy future. What worked yesterday, when aviation was more widely embraced by the offspring of those alive when Lindbergh flew the At…

Trying to be a good father, I spent a rainy weekend making a recycling run though boxes that have lived unopened for more than a decade in the closet of the spare bedroom. Accepting that my expiration date, while unknown, is growing ever closer, I d…

With retention of active duty aviators and recruitment of qualified newcomers to fill empty cockpits a growing challenge for America’s armed forces, might it be time to reopen the flight training door to enlisted pilots who meet the physical a…

Could Knowledge of Undisclosed MCAS Have Saved Lion Air 610?By Rob MarkHaving spent more than a few decades in the cockpit, I thought even I’d reached that plateau where I could claim I’d just about seen it all … until this week&…

Following Santa’s directions, for Christmas my oldest son’s wife got him an introductory flight lesson. I can’t remember any gift in the preceding years that left him so excited. An ICU nurse living in the metropolitan Kansas City,…

Just six months on the job as Enstrom Helicopter’s production test pilot, Cody Parkovich traces his position to the night he was bartending in Marinette, Wisconsin, just across the river from Menominee, Michigan. “That night I found out,…

Photo courtesy David Massey — Embry-Riddle Aeronautical UniversityPilot pride comes with the certificates and ratings achieved through successful checkrides. But like flying itself, maintaining one’s pilot pride properly is a never-ending ef…