Remarks

One of the beautiful things about Oshkosh is the self-deception: Stand in the middle of the crowded grounds, teaming with people and aircraft, and you can enjoy the momentary illusion that aviation is actually a popular, well-attended activity.

Years ago I was briefly involved in motorcycle road racing. T-shirts with the slogan, Crashing Sucks and a suitable graphic were quite popular. Even then, I thought how appropriate that slogan also was for aviation. Now we find ourselves with back-to-back airliner crashes while landing in visual conditions and Im reminded of just how appropriate that slogan is to aviation. Crashing sucks for all the obvious reasons, but we must also remember that aviation is a…

At my day job flying airliners, I encounter many pilots for whom flying has sadly become a tedious demand, necessary to put bread on...

I just attended the insurance-mandated recurrent training for my C340A that I haven't flown in years. I made my share of mistakes, most of...

Trust me. I'm painfully aware it's July already. And that's really part of the point. I've got to fly more often, something I vowed...

Drawings like this have been "out there" for years, although I'd not seen one until a contributor recently forwarded one to me. This resonates...

The battle has raged a long time between useful, inexpensive, portable, non-certified devices and panel-mount certified instrumentation. In practice, weve long used non-certified portables for navigation and we havent been falling out of sky in swarms.

Most of us learned to fly when the most advanced thing on our panels was a NAV/COM. Perhaps you entered the scene a bit...

The Vietnam War was in full swing when I graduated high school. The economy was in the toilet and airlines were furloughing. There were countless military pilots looking for jobs. It was a terrible time to launch a professional pilot career.

Most of us know that the F in IM SAFE stands for fatigue. Now, fatigue isnt cited as a significant factor in many general aviation accidents, so we must be doing a pretty good job of being properly rested, right?

When I took my first flying lesson at age 18, I knew…nothing. I even thought a stall was killing the engine, like when I let the clutch out too fast in my car. But I learned, and after only a few hours I was performing aerodynamic stalls with aplomb, if not expertise. Years later, still a private pilot, a friend introduced me to a prolonged stall where you didnt recover and just keep the wings level with rudder. We called that the falling leaf after the swaying back and forth that occurred.

According to the FAAs body mass index guidelines, Im not obese but, like many Americans, I should lose some weight. Ive long known that I should retrain myself to reach for an apple-or better yet a carrot-when Im hungry, instead of some chocolate or junk food. Yeah, Im workin on it, um, real soon now. Now, the FAA is, too.