Letter to myself as a young student pilot — lessons learned after 20 years of flying

I’m certainly not the world’s most experienced pilot and I’m not facing a terminal illness, so it may seem an odd time for reflections about the meaning of life and all that. But this…

What it takes to be one sharp pilot, part 3: coordination

Before you accuse me of throwing gasoline on a fire, I’ll say up front that is exactly what I am doing.

I read all the comments that readers post on our site and I am always impressed with the battle lines…

Is “hard IFR” a myth? 5 things to keep it from being that way

To begin, I never knew what people really meant when they talked about flying “hard” IFR. The implication is that there is also “easy” IFR but nobody seemed to know the exact difference between the two.

10 tips for prospective businessmen (or businesswomen) pilots

Would you like to be a businessman pilot? Would you like to fly your own airplane for work and family travel? If so, you are like me from a few years ago. Since then I got my private, my instrument rating and my own Cessna…

Coming down with the aviation bug: why me?

It is a calm, sunny Sunday afternoon, and I am at 1500 feet AGL in the old Chief, cruising south to the Shelbyville, Indiana airport, to practice short-ish field landings on their grass crosswind runway. Looking to my right, there is my regular flying…

Why do pilots hate recurrent training?

There are only two things pilots like more than flying: eating and talking. So it was no surprise when I recently found myself eating lunch and talking about airplanes with two fellow flyers. One of them was recounting the semi-regular proficiency exercise he…

What it takes to be one sharp pilot — start with awareness

The Internet as full of stories that say they are going to give you a list of things about whatever. A lot of the time, though, the actual list is hard to find. So, I will start with a list of the things that I think define a…

Aviation’s doomsday preppers

Roughly 20% of Americans think the world will end in their lifetime. That seems awfully pessimistic, but these doomsday preppers have nothing on pilots. Based on a number of recent conversations and comments from readers here at Air Facts, a solid majority believe general…

Electric airplanes — is the tipping point upon us?

Just like a Chicago Cubs appearance in the World Series, predictions about the coming electric aircraft boom seem to pop up every year, only to be crushed by reality. A brief stroll around the internet shows that “The Year of the Electric…