My last column, “Asleep at the Yoke,” included a report about a Piper Seneca pilot who had to ditch his airplane in the Gulf of Mexico. The thought of having to ditch an aircraft intrigued me, especially when I realized there is a different psychology to the act of ditching vs. an intentional forced landing […]
Opinion
Pilot Perspectives: Bruce Williams
By DEREK ROBERTS. “It’s like driving an old British convertible sportscar. It’s fun on a winding mountain road in the summer, but going down the autobahn, you’d rather have a Mercedes.” An apt metaphor from Extra 300L owner/instructor Bruce Williams, as he describes his seasonal trip from Seattle’s Boeing Field to Boulder City, Nevada, where […]
Taking a moment to enjoy the view
It seems I’ve got a bit of an oil pressure problem. The temperature looks good, but the pressure on engine number 1, the engine that sits behind my left shoulder, is running significantly lower than it should. Lower than the rock solid 50 psi on engine number 2, that’s for sure. Having two engines means […]
What’s going on with the left prop on my Piper Mojave?
Q: I just bought a Piper Mojave. It has 1,200 hours on both engines. Pre-buy, including oil analysis, was good. During a maiden flight, the left prop feathered on prop check. We checked the dome pressure, it was low. We topped it to 41 psi. Took off for an hour flight. Landed and left prop […]
The triumph of LSA
In barely over a decade, Light-Sport Aircraft have had an enormous impact on the world of aviation. Is that too strong a statement? “Where are all these LSA,” you might ask? How on Earth can I justify writing “…had an enormous impact?” Fair questions, all. Let me answer. A quick summary: LSA sell around the […]
What goes up, must come down…somewhere
Safety in flight is not something that happens by chance. In the long term, pilots don’t get lucky. They plan and execute well, or they fly with reckless abandon and take their chances. Maybe they have an accident or maybe they don’t. But there’s no luck involved. It’s just timing. Anyone in any pursuit who […]
Set yourself up to say yes
It was Friday morning. The first day of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s last regional fly-in of the year in Tampa, Florida. I’d started the day early, but not bright. Les Smith, AOPA’s Senior Director of Pilot Community, and I met for breakfast before the sun dared show itself over the horizon. We had […]
The art of naming aircraft
Aircraft manufacturers and users have a penchant for picking names for their machines. Sometimes, a name is so good or so universally associated with a manufacturer that it gets recycled on a new design. The Chance Vought company’s first Corsair was in 1926. It was an observation biplane, the O2U, supplanted by the O3U. Fewer […]
Awesome by choice
When I was 15 years old I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. That’s rare, it seems. More often than not teenagers have very little idea what they want to do for a living. In my case, I pursued my dream for far longer than most young men chase their […]